


Aqua Lung

by darkmochecoffee



Series: THE RYEONSEUNG AGENDA [3]
Category: UNIQ (Band), UP10TION, VICTON (Band), X1 (Korea Band)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alpha/Beta, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Sex, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, M/M, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Slow Burn, this is a very dark fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:08:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21645001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkmochecoffee/pseuds/darkmochecoffee
Summary: Then and there, Seungyoun thought about the peculiarities of the universe, how an aberrant entity could send meteors crashing through space, that one small thing such as the existence of Seungwoo could alter the very fabric of Seungyoun's reality//Or;The rise and fall of Eve, where omega Seungyoun plays drums for a thrash band and meets Alpha Seungwoo, an enthralling enigma.
Relationships: Cho Seungyeon | Seungyoun/Han Seungwoo, Han Seungwoo/Lee Jinhyuk, Kim Wooseok | Wooshin/Lee Jinhyuk, Kim Yohan/Lee Hangyul
Series: THE RYEONSEUNG AGENDA [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1548019
Comments: 34
Kudos: 138





	1. new skin

**Author's Note:**

> gotta admit guys, this is a really, really dark fic. it's a self indulgent mess. 
> 
> title is from Jethro Tull

> **_At first I see an open wound_ **   
>  **_infected and disastrous_ **   
>  **_It breathes chaotic catastrophe_ **   
>  **_it cries to be renewed_ **
> 
> -incubus, new skin
> 
> * * *

“I don’t think it sounds good.”

It’s nighttime and it should be cold but Seungyoun burns nonetheless. It must be forty degrees out, it’s summer and it’s sweltering, the whir of the AC is loud against the sudden quiet in the room. Seungyoun’s skin is chocolate melting off his bones.

Seungwoo doesn’t seem to mind the the heat. His bare feet continue to tap onto the wooden floor, fingers idly caressing the rosewood fret board of his bass. “Something sounds off.” The man complains and he rakes his damp hair back. He is obviously unsettled that he cannot seem to figure out what’s wrong.

“Give it a rest.” Seungyoun murmurs after he flips onto his soft belly. He blearily stares at Seungwoo, watches rivulets of sweat run down Seungwoo’s temples. “It’s the ass crack of dawn and my neighbors will complain because you’re not supposed to disturb honest working people on a weekday.” Seungwoo chuckles quietly and finally puts down his stickerbombed Gibson. It’s the same from years ago. Seungyoun assumes that the bassist must have a very peculiar attachment to the instrument because he is still using it even now when it looks about ready to fall apart.

“Why do you still use that?” Seungyoun asks like an afterthought. “You don’t ever plan on using a precision bass?”

Seungwoo stares at the beat up Gibson Thunderbird in his grasp. He looks at the guitar like a proud parent. “Maybe someday. Anyway, I’m sorry about disturbing you this late, Youn.”

“M’okay. You do it all the time anyway.” Seungwoo’s scent permeates the space and the heat seemed to concentrate it further. Seungyoun tries to ignore it but Seungwoo smells _cold._ He’s a pine forest in winter. So, so, cold. It’s exactly what Seungyoun needs.

Seungwoo stands up, “I guess you could say that.” He approaches and casually lands on Seungyoun’s bed. Seungyoun wants to sit up, tuck his head underneath Seungwoo’s chin and have the alpha breathe into his neck.

_It’s so fucking hot and Seungwoo’s so fucking cold._

Seungwoo is an alpha. He smells that of a pine forest but when he gets closer, Seungyoun can smell petrichor and carnations. It’s strange but he wants to inhale it, have his lungs freeze with it. Seungwoo presses an ice cold palm on Seungyoun’s burning back. Seungyoun has yet to decide if the touch is unwarranted or otherwise. He leans against the touch and he abhors the way his repressed omega fucking _preens._

Sometimes, Seungyoun does not like himself.

“Can I stay the night?”

Seungwoo is gentle, from the way he looks to the way he speaks. That’s his defining trait. Everything Seungyoun knows about him is soft, all his sharp edges dulled. Seungyoun is weak for him.

“Sure.” Seungyoun mumbles and he falls asleep in a pine forest.

♬♬♬

It began when their original bassist left.

They called themselves _Eve_. It’s written with an upside down V and flanked by mirrored Es. The first time Seungyoun saw their finished icon, he thought it resembled a crest for some demonic cult. Maybe back then they were aiming for that image - the rage of youth playing for reckless souls. They were younger then, lost in the void and trying to get by without crashing and burning from the get go.

Eve was the most peculiar looking hodgepodge of misfits and Eve was Seungyoun’s only family. Yohan’s indiscernible screams of poetic angst and violence, Hangyul and Jinhyuk’s dirty riffs all rounded by the heaviness of Minsoo’s bass - this is Seungyoun’s family, and with them he is home. They were idealists, they didn’t make much and that was alright. Their music was the only thing that mattered, as long as Seungyoun can throw his drumsticks to a bunch of equally adoring misfits, they’ll be fine. Or so they thought. 

Two years it took before they’re falling apart, two years before they realized that sometimes music isn’t enough.

“I’m too old for this.”

Their practice sessions became poorly concealed pity parties where everyone is miles away from sober. Yohan’s voice deteriorated, his throat closing up and burning in pain when he attempts to sing notes that used to come so easily to him. Hangyul, ever aloof Hangyul, showed his concerns through blame strung into words that lanced. He didn't know how to properly display it but he’s only ever stirred away from his apathy when Yohan’s concerned. Yohan’s armor is cracked, they all know this but he never lets Hangyul in to step all over him.

Seungyoun thinks their unacknowledged love is more fucked up than all of them combined.

The sudden removal of the bass was so apparent, it’s something impossible to hide unlike Yohan’s debilitation. After all, Minsoo’s bass line was the core of their experimental sound, it’s their insignia, it’s what made them Eve.

Minsoo removed the instrument from his person. His eyes were bloodshot, Seungyoun couldn’t decide if the streaks of red were from the tears he tried to hold back or from the pot he’d been smoking mere minutes ago. It could be both; it didn’t matter anymore.

“This,” Minsoo indented with a loud sniffle. He was a big person, unmistakably alpha. But as he struggled not to sob against his closed fist, Seungyoun was convinced that premeditated behaviors dictated by their subgender was merely a textbook allusion. Real life fucked everyone up in the end and it chose its victims in random.

Seungyoun thought about dartboards with their names on it. That day, the dart landed on Minsoo.

“I can’t do this anymore. The drugs, the cheap sex. It’s too much. I’m too old for this, can’t do it anymore. It’ll fucking kill me.”

They all heard this too: I’m too old for dingy music houses, too old to chase for elusive success in this fucking path, too old for irrecoverable failure. They didn’t say anything because maybe, just maybe, they understood Minsoo for he was brave enough to address the reality they could not bear to face head on.

And they thought they were rock stars, in reality they were just little boys trying to survive in the big bad world.

After two years, they watched Minsoo pack his bags and walk out.

♬♬♬

What happened next was a domino of events that ranged from mere shitty to downright fucked up.

Yohan and Hangyul casually fell into bed and into their vices. They were too wrapped up in their collective sadness to realize that maybe, all they needed was each other. They were fire and gasoline and they razed everything to the ground including the posts that held up what Seungyoun once called his family. Jinhyuk, ever strong leader Jinhyuk, watched them burn and turn to ash. He said nothing, what’s there to say anyway?

“Youn.” Jinhyuk was drunk, all of them were but Jinhyuk’s inebriation was soul deep. He tried to drown his inefficiency in his booze and in his drugs. He tried to be the rock star they all could not be. “You deserve better, Seungyoun.”

_We all deserve better, but we’re cowards._

Seungwoo walked into their lives months after Minsoo and the destruction he’d left behind. The first thought Seungyoun had was this: _pine forests._ Seungwoo smelled like a pine forest in winter. He was the cold that contrasted greatly with the heat and filth that emanated from within Eve.

He had the most disarming smile.

“Heard you lost a member.” Seungwoo said this like a casual greeting, his expression almost mocking. Seungyoun cannot read him. “Sorry about that.”

The pub they’d been at was questionable at best, illegal at worst. Eve lounged in one of the unclean backrooms, trying to drown out the sounds of loud fucking from the next door. Nobody batted an eyelash.

Jinhyuk stood up and met Seungwoo’s steady gaze. “Yeah. What do you want?”

“To play bass.”

To this, Yohan laughed, obsequious to some degree. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

“I’m Seungwoo.”

There was this thing about Seungwoo Han. He carried himself in the most carefree of manner that it felt off. His apathy was a defense mechanism. _You can’t move me._ He was a paradox unlike everyone else that has come and gone throughout Seungyoun’s life. There was something about him that seemed to be buried underneath endless layers of lock and key. Seungyoun has yet to figure it out. For now Seungwoo had an arsenal of secretive smiles and an armor of casual demeanor - too curated, too fake. 

Yohan cursed at Seungwoo, because that was his thing - he acted like a wounded animal and he ignored subgenders. _Alphas can go fuck themselves._ Seungwoo, as an alpha, can go fuck himself too. “And you think you can replace Minsoo? How about you get the fuck outta here.”

“Yohan shut the fuck up.” and that was Hangyul. He was the equalizing entity to Yohan’s personality. He was either gasoline or water to Yohan’s perpetual fiery rage.

The unease permeated the room. Amid the smell of booze and cigarette smoke, there were Yohan’s rose and Hangyul’s wood and spice. Hangyul had circled his fingers around Yohan’s wrist, pulled him down. Yohan volleyed him with a lethal gaze. Hangyul stared back with deadened eyes. “Let Jinyuk talk for a second, quit this will you?” Yohan swatted Hangyul’s hand away, “Well if it isn’t convenient for you, Gyul. You always acted like you were better than Minsoo anyway. Between the both of us, it's you who should shut the fuck up.” He gave Seungwoo another baleful glare before he stood up and left. Seungyoun heard Jinhyuk’s exhale. The leader grabbed a bottle of beer from the trashed table.

“Play bass?” Jinhyuk’s plump lower lip was caught on the rim of the bottle. Seungyoun didn’t miss Seungwoo’s gaze on Jinhyuk, on his lips. “I’m afraid we’re all quite fucked up right now. But sure, got something to show?”

Seungwoo grinned, secretive, guarded. “My band’s playing before Eve. I’m quitting right after. Don’t disappoint me.” He turned and left. He was so self assured that it bordered on being arrogant. It killed Seungyoun to think that he found it attractive.

Seungwoo played bass like the finest virtuoso. He played with a Gibson Thunderbird, the instrument could have been black underneath those stickers, Seungyoun wasn’t sure for he was far too busy ogling the one playing. Seungyoun could not stop thinking that Seungwoo should have been standing on a bigger stage, heralded by thunderous applause. Instead, he’s on a rickety platform, in a shady pub located in the town’s dodgiest area, playing for a bunch of wayward souls drunk with their choice of substance.

The band was obviously going for some type of Nu Metal sound, but the frontman was too weak for it. He screamed his notes like a mourner’s burial screech. It was Seungwoo who commanded their genre, the heavy tones spilling from his guitar provided a body for their horribly disjointed sound. His sultry stares made the audience wild, and the screams went louder when he leaned forward, past the barricade to fuck the crowd with his eyes. Then he was gone, stepping away and smirking

See, Seungwoo Han was enthralling in his restraint and his mystery. He made you feel like you could have him, you could come so close, almost like touching and then he would dissipate. He would revel in the fact that you can only see and touch what’s on his surface but never deep enough to know his secrets.

The same could be said with his playing. His long fingers pranced on the rosewood fret board and he made it look so fucking easy. Everyone thinks they can play as good as he does but that’s where his deception lie. Seungyoun looked at Seungwoo manipulate his instrument like he was enjoying some sort of meaningless fuck with a person he truly loved.

“Fuckin’ good.” Jinhyuk comments. His perpetual state was in between drunk and sober. “fucker, knows how to play.”

Seungyoun did not bother to learn the band’s name. It was an unnecessary information. “Yeah, you wanna recruit him?”

After the last twang from the guitars had reverberated into its last notes, the place erupted into raucous chaos, interrupted by punches of derogatory hoots. Seungwoo swiped his tongue against his bottom lip. Seungyoun noticed the way Seungwoo’s shirt clung to his body like second skin, the black contrasted greatly against his pale flesh. His ripped skinny pants seemed slightly obnoxious.

“Do you think Yohan will kill me?” Jinhyuk asked, more like an afterthought for the moment he first heard Seungwoo play, the decision has been made. Jinhyuk’s scent was stronger, Seungyoun noticed. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine the beach, saltwater on his tongue, the wind on his face. “He’s probably beheaded me in his mind when I let Minsoo walk out anyway. All this fucking in the band gets us all fucked in the end, figuratively.”

“Don’t say anything for now.” Seungyoun watched Seungwoo and the rest of his band leave the stage. “Yohan’s gotta accept that his former booty call ain’t coming back no matter how good of a lay he was and that we need a replacement, pronto.”

Jinhyuk shrugged, “Or maybe Hangyul can just fuck that attitude out of his system, or like finally admit that he loves Yohan too fucking much that it’s painfully obvious.”

Seungyoun acknowledged this though not a word left his lips.

♬♬♬

Yohan’s voice deteriorated further and his hatred for Seungwoo, the official replacement, was like scratching a scabbed over wound until it never stopped bleeding. They were chaos personified, a death metal band with a frontman who couldn’t even scream his part practically equated to their demise. Jinhyuk has had enough. He played his guitar like he wanted it broken.

“This is a fucking mess.”

The scant money they earn go to cheap studios, those that catered to the likes of them. They humored themselves as musicians though they do know that everyone outside their scene thought nothing of them but mere fools who made noise and slapped a label on it. Maybe there was some sort of truth to that statement.

Yohan’s rose bloomed like a signal that his irritation was flaring. “Got any problem with it Seungwoo? Do you wanna take my role too? Do you wanna sing?”

Seungwoo stared at Yohan, his expression was carefully impassive, ever calm and guarded. Seungyoun thought that maybe he smelled like a pine forest because his alpha was stable, nothing could tick him off into a rage. He was a pine forest that stood unwavering in the middle of a violent blizzard.

_“Go see a fucking doctor.”_

For a heartbeat, complete and utter fury crosses Yohan’s face. He looked like he wanted to gouge the alpha’s eyes out in anger, and then the expression disappeared replaced by something so pathetically vulnerable. Yohan crumpled to the ground and wept like something’s completely shattered within him. “I fucking hate you.” He seethed at Seungwoo though everyone knew the sentiment was directed to himself. “It should have been Minsoo, not some fucking stranger, telling me what to do.”

“If he truly cared, he would have said something. I know we’re not friends, but you’re my fucking band mate. And if I have to make it my fucking obligation to drag you to a doctor, then I will. Your voice is essential to his band. You can hate me all you want but don’t be so fucking selfish.”

Nobody moved a muscle as the confrontation unfolded. Nobody dared breathe.

Seungyoun stared at Seungwoo. Yohan was still on the floor, his entire body quaking. Hangyul knelt beside the frontman, pulling Yohan’s body to his. For the first time, Yohan did not react. Jinhyuk was so, so unbearably quiet as the events unfolded. “He’s right, Han.” The vocalist inhaled as he braced himself on Hangyul’s body to stand up.

“I need a minute.”

Everyone else watched him leave.

♬♬♬

Through the course of their career, Seungwoo and Jinhyuk shared a sort of mutualism. They used each other for whatever sort of beneficial gain, from being fuck buddies to musical critiques.

Seungyoun overheard them talk one time. It was near midnight and both alphas stood in the balcony of their shared flat. Seungyoun watched them pass the same bottle of beer between each other; the smell of marijuana was thick in the air. Seungyoun should have left then and there but he felt compelled to stay rooted to his spot.

He could hear their voices so clearly amid the late night traffic and the shouting of delinquents fourteen floors below. He definitely should not have been there. Jinhyuk and Seungwoo ignored his presence.

“I couldn’t even do shit for him. It was the least I could do but I just fucking watched while he destroyed himself. Some fucking leader I am. “

The alphas’ combined scent was peculiar - a pine forest and the sea. Seungyoun concentrated on it, tried to ignore the way Jinhyuk’s voice cracked. “Should have been the grown up, should have fucking told him.”

“You could have begged him and it wouldn’t change no goddamn thing. There’s no helping him when he didn’t have enough grit to help himself. Yohan’s practically a stranger to me, maybe I was the push he needed.” Seungwoo’s voice was calm, almost a whisper.

“I brought them all to this band. One way or another, I’m responsible for every one of us. But I watched Minsoo walked away and we’re all just falling apart because I can’t fucking do anything.” 

Seungyoun has known Jinhyuk for years, and in all that time, he’s never seen the alpha be vulnerable in front of someone else. Jinhyuk doesn’t cry, he can keep a straight face even in his weakest. Though this time, there was a break in his voice as he came awfully close to tears.

Seungwoo placed a hand on Jinhyuk’s shoulders, urging the other to face him. There was a moment, a charged moment, an understanding. It elapsed in mere seconds. Seungwoo leaned into whisper something to Jinhyuk, it could be assurances, it could be false promises. Jinhyuk’s reply was to bracket Seungwoo onto the metal railing and kissing him.

Then and there, Seungyoun thought about the peculiarities of the universe, how an aberrant entity could send meteors crashing through space; that one small being such as the existence of Han Seungwoo could alter Seungyoun’s fabric of reality. His organs felt like they were shriveling, like getting doused in boiling water.

_Why was it painful?_

Seungwoo anchored himself on Jinhyuk’s shoulders, angled his neck like it’s an offering. Seungyoun shut his eyes and made himself scarce.

♬♬♬

Yohan eventually faced his demons and his diagnosis gave the band an ultimatum.

Seungyoun hated tense discussions. They sat in a circle facing each other though Seungwoo was sitting on the window ledge and staring into the crude graffiti decorating the wall of the building next to theirs. They were quiet, like one little tap might shatter the fragile connection they thought they once had.

Like Minsoo, Yohan began with, “Can’t do it anymore.” Yohan had his palms pressed to his face. The last time Seungyoun heard him speak this calmly was years ago, when they weren’t in such a difficult situation, when Jinhyuk didn’t turn to alcohol to deal with his problems, when Hangyul didn’t smoke his lungs to ashes, when he and Seungyoun didn’t chew on their prescription medication like candy, when they were _okay,_ when they were Eve.

Seungwoo stared at Jinhyuk from across the room, the bassist nodded and there was a look on his face that seemed to hold all the secrets of the universe, a look that Jinhyuk seemed privy to.

“I’m not allowing you to quit.” Jinhyuk evenly said. The guitarist’s face was unreadable now that he’s temporarily sober. Jinhyuk’s sea breeze washes over them, stable, strong, _alpha. “_ Not now, not ever, not like this.”

“What the fuck do you want me to do, fucking sing pop? I told you, Jinhyuk. I want to continue but I physically can’t.” Yohan took this harder than all of them combined for he was looking at the eyes of his own mistakes and he was utterly powerless to rectify what he’d done. It was painful, knowing that there’s nothing that could be done to ease their suffering. Seungyoun can only watch and sit still as they crack from the weight of their collective sins.

It was Hangyul who stood up first. With shaking fingers, he grabbed a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his back pocket. “If we have to create an entirely new fucking genre, we’ll do it.” He took one long drag, exhaling unsteadily. “Don’t leave. This is our dream.”

Hangyul’s scent was overwhelming, further compounded by his visceral distress. Seungyoun, being the singular omega in the room, inadvertently could not stop feeling like he was being backed into some allegorical wall. Biology was a bitch, and the bitch deemed it thus that Seungyoun was in danger with three upset alphas in his general vicinity. He probably reeked. Jinhyuk once told him he smelled like a Reese cup smothered in honey.

“I’m sorry, Youn.” Jinhyuk sat beside him. Seungyoun pressed his face on Jinhyuk’s neck, inhaling the scent. The alpha was comforting without alcohol tampering his natural sea breeze. “I’m fine.” Seungyoun whispered, embarrassed.

“You’re an omega?” Seungwoo questioned. For once his expression was not carefully impassive.

Seungyoun, raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, you got a problem with that?”

“Nothing, just surprised is all. But here,” He dropped a battered notebook to the coffee table where it joined a mess of beer bottles and a half-filled ashtray. “I write songs, softer than what we’re used to, but they’re something we can work around with. It’ll be easier on your throat and maybe one of us can sing backup.”

For the first time since they met, Yohan looked at Seungwoo without hatred shining on his eyes.

♬♬♬

_Eve’s_ first official show as an alternative metal band coaxes violent ire from their loyal audience. They were bigshots in the underground scene, hailed to be the greatest thrash band in recent memory. They were an embarrassment now. Just a couple of has beens.

The purists will be mad, they were expecting it one way or another.

Eve became soft, somewhat, despite looking exactly like they used to. Jinhyuk was covered in even more ink than they first began, black lines skirting up his neck and occupying the entirety of his back. The difference was that he played more finely, his and Hangyul’s skills were highlighted by their shift in genre. Yohan sang cleaner vocals and Seungwoo rounded their sound with his bass and his voice. Seungyoun thinks they’re better. 

The consensus was that Seungwoo’s material was great but not exactly what their previous audience expected from them.

Hangyul slapped Seungwoo’s back when they exited the stage, boos and screams of appreciation shouted in equal passion by the throng of people behind them.

“We killed it.” Hangyul said, smile splitting his peculiarly endearing face. He reeked of spice, of cinnamon. “We fucking slayed it.”

“They hated us.” Yohan rolled his eyes. “but they’re gonna adore us soon enough, especially with pretty boy out here fucking the air.” The beta glanced at Seungwoo, expression fond. “Thanks, you ain’t so terrible after all.”

“You’re welcome.” Seungwoo grinned as he suddenly hooked his arm around Seungyoun’s waist. “Honey, what you think?” He stared at Seungyoun with those subdued amber eyes and the drummer’s legs felt like they were slowly turning into gelatin. He shrugged Seungwoo off him, chuckling to cover his unease. “They hate us but we’re gonna make it.”

Jinhyuk clambered over them, drunk off a few bottles of beer and high from their stage. “We’re gonna fucking make it.”

And they will.

♬♬♬

The band’s take-off was an inorganic process. They began, they fall apart, they regroup, they succeed, they fall apart once more.

They played their third show in a different venue. It was a small music house, but it catered to a more diverse audience. For the first time in Eve’s history, they were faced with people who didn’t find camaraderie in death metal and the most appalling of fashion.

And they played like it was their last. Seungyoun’s arms ached from exhaustion and his drumsticks were worn enough that one more hit might completely shatter them. Jinhyuk’s drunkenness seemed to heighten his previously hidden skills as he scratched his Stratocaster like a born again virtuoso.

Behind his drums, Seungyoun concentrated on his beat, on his tempo, every stroke perfected and resonant. He could hear Seungwoo’s voice in his ears and like everything else about Seungwoo, it was equally enthralling. 

They finished to the whole area screaming for an encore. Eve played their last song and then they stood in front of the crowd with arms over each others’ shoulders, sweat trickling from one body to the next.

There was a man waiting for them in their room at the back of the club, the place is noticeably cleaner, with thicker walls so they don’t hear people fucking from the next door. The man was middle aged and he gave Eve his best professional smile and a bunch of papers that held the promises of world domination. When he offered Eve the contract they’ve been waiting for all these years, they looked at each other and screamed like happy little children.

For the second time, Eve was born.


	2. over the hills and faraway

> Many have I loved, and many times been bitten  
>  Many times I've gazed along the open road
> 
> Many times I've lied, and many times I've listened  
>  Many times I've wondered how much there is to know
> 
> _**over the hills and faraway** , led zeppelin _

* * *

Seungyoun often wonders how their dreams boiled down to nothing but fragments, how their dreams turned into a catastrophe. They were powerful, they had everything so why did it all shatter so quickly? How did they become mere casualties to the goals that had fueled them to plough through from the beginning?

Maybe it is the fame, it got to their heads.

They are all addicted to their own choice of substance but fame is their equalizing constant, it is addicting that it could not even compare even to the most potent of drugs. It seeped into their blood, so blindingly deceptive - it was poison. It killed, it destroyed. Fame began its insidious assault by creating a small fissure that crawled and spread. It planted insecurities they once thought could only be a pipe dream and it rotted them in their foundation. When Eve noticed how hollow of a shell they have become, it was all too late.

Seungyoun wonders if Minsoo was out there, if the regret claws him from the inside seeing as the people he left behind had catapulted themselves to the top without him. In retrospect, he started it all. Seungwoo would have never walked into their lives in the first place if Minsoo did not point a loaded gun and pulled the trigger at their own dreams of success. In his wandering thoughts, Seungyoun often thinks of Minsoo. He wants to thank him for destroying Yohan, for pushing Jinhyuk into alcoholism, for opening an entirely new avenue that lead Eve to the pinnacle of relevancy, to fame - to their demise.

The thoughts leave an acrid taste in Seungyoun’s mouth, but he likes goading himself. If Minsoo did not leave, he would not be in such a godforsaken mess, he would never be victim to this unnecessary pain that felt like twisting his organs around his lungs until it gets hard to even breathe.

If Minsoo did not walk away, Seungyoun would have never met Seungwoo.

♬♬♬

Eve blew up. They were wildfire, quickly engulfing the contemporary music scene with their anthems of ill concealed philosophy that varied through whatever aberrant idea that occupied Seungyoun’s mind. He wrote about sadness with an almost violent inclination towards himself that his songs hit too close to home for most people. Seungyoun wrote about his motivations and his inspirations, he wrote about the beauty of his fucked up world. He put himself on paper and Yohan sang his thoughts to sold out venues in tune to Jinhyuk’s rhythms.

Seungyoun’s thing was to never pen songs about love because love was a foreign subject, nothing more but an enigma though mostly he never wrote about love because love was Hangyul’s forte. The guitarist’s songs got more and more profound. His lyrics were raw, as if he’d cut himself open and wrote with his own blood dripping from his fingers. Hangyul had conceded to a life of unrequited affection, and he believed this with an utmost finality. Yohan sang Hangyul’s confessions and pretended that they were not about him - for him.

Their debut EP pushed them to the front rows of modern pop music. They were the underdogs but they mingled with the rich and famous, not exactly on the top of the food chain but they climbed fast enough to make the competition nervous.

Admittedly they got drunk off it. There was a certain high to meeting people whose eyes shine with admiration, intimidation, and envy. They let the artificiality of this new world sink into their very pores. They let it consume them whole.

It was all fun and games. They were young, newly famous and it was tart on their tongues.

Inevitably, the environment further enabled their vices and goaded their demons. Jinhyuk started to drink because he was asked and not because he tried to forget his inadequacies. He moved from beer to whiskey and was never truly sober, not even when he and Seungwoo fucked around with each other, not even when they played, not even when they created music. Drunkenness became a personality trait, an adjective the tabloids used to describe him. Hangyul slowly but surely strayed away. He found the company of beautiful strangers to appease the permanent void in his chest. Yohan did not give a fuck for he was too blinded by the adoration from every living soul that orbited around him. He was the sun and they were the planets. Seungyoun remained a victim to the unending churning of his thoughts, only the cheerful colors of his pills help placate the chaos in his mind. The pills gave him sleep, helped him breathe.

It was safe to say that they found the straightest path to hell, what a cliche. Amid all their mess, Seungwoo was still an unreadable book, ever beautiful in his ambiguity.

Seungyoun hated him. _Almost._

♬♬♬

A black van stopped in a secluded area down south. There was a two storey house set in the middle of nowhere, bordered by dense vegetation to the back. The house was wooden all over. It reeked of decay and a part of the southern walls seemed about ready to come apart. From the patio, one can see a largely undisturbed lake, its surface reflected the early morning sun like a tinted mirror. A dock jutted out from where the land met the water.

“Why the fuck are we here again?” Hangyul murmured, smoke blowing from his lips. He brandished his phone as if offering it to the air and frowned. “The service is nonexistent. Is going all this way actually necessary?”

“That’s the point.” Jinhyuk heaved his guitar case out of the van. He staggered. “We need a cleanse. No drugs, less fucking around, no distractions. The label is breathing down my neck. We need to finish the album and -- fuck this hangover, _shit._ ”

Seungwoo chuckled, taking a step forward to stabilize Jinhyuk with a grounding hold around the man’s torso. “Yeah. You need that cleanse. Tone down on the Jack for once, got me?” Jinhyuk nodded halfheartedly and pressed his face on Seungwoo’s neck. “You’ve gotten real good at ordering me around. Does it spark your fancy?”

Seungwoo laughed at this. “No. But to order you around is a novelty.”

“Spoiled.”

Seungyoun watched the interaction unfold and there was the familiar twisting in his gut, rearing its ugly head. Seungwoo turned to the drummer with an eyebrow raised, “Something wrong, Youn?”

Seungyoun shook his head. “I’m fine. Why do you ask?”

“You reek, Youn.” Hangyul answered for Seungwoo. He pressed his nose on the back of Seungyoun’s right ear and inhaled. “And I mean like a burnt Reese cup smothered in honey. Feel alright?”

Seungyoun leaned against Hangyul’s touch and let the gentle spice of Hangyul’s scent calm him. “I’m okay, just exhausted. When do we start working?”

Yohan released a sarcastic chortle. “We start when Jinhyuk gets his shit together.”

Jinhyuk laughed. “I promise to be less hungover soon, just bear with me.”

“Yeah, yeah. Go drink some fucking tea.”

♬♬♬

The twang of the bass reverberated in the sound booth. Seungwoo’s fingers tightly wrapped around the neck of his guitar, his right thumb connected against the strings - a sonorous slap indicated the last notes of untitled track four. Jinhyuk’s experimentation with his pedals produced a hybrid symphony with Seungwoo’s signature slap style, and Seungyoun’s acid induced lyrics were almost romantic wrapped in Yohan’s sultry baritone.

They have really come so far.

“That’s it?”

Jinhyuk crossed the studio to get a bottle of electrolyte drink sitting undisturbed on the floor. He finished a quarter and tosses it to Seungwoo. “What? You want to rerecord?”

Yohan’s brows furrowed, “I sounded like shit.”

“You sounded great.” Hangyul sighed, “You’ve always sounded great.”

“You flatter me.” Yohan took the drink from Seungwoo and when he finished, he chucked the empty plastic across the room. “It’s alright, you don’t have to coddle me, my feelings aren’t that fragile.”

Seungyoun nervously thumbed his drumsticks. From behind his cymbals, his eyes flicked from Yohan to Hangyul. The scent of unease was so thick inside the recording studio, he could choke in it. Seungyoun was rattling and he was absolutely sure that he reeked. Hangyul did not move from his spot; his impassive expression did not calm Seungyoun the slightest.

“You know what, you’re fucking right. I don’t even know why I bother.”

An entire spectrum of emotions came to play ephemerally upon Hangyul’s face, there and gone. He blinked and his mask of rigidly controlled impassivity was back where it belonged.

Unnerved by the escalating situation, Seungyoun lost his grip on a drumstick and it clattered onto the floor. He realized his fingers were shaking, his entire body was. Hangyul’s ill concealed irritation sent a jolt of irrational fear down Seungyoun’s spine.

Being the only omega in a band comprised mostly of alphas was not really a big problem except at times like this. It was hard to disguise his emotions when even the slightest discomfort changed his scent, signaled his deeply hidden need for safety and comfort. He hated it, hated being put under the spot by his fucking biology. Hangyul glanced at him and volleyed an apology through his gaze. Seungyoun was mildly grateful that the alpha did not move from his spot, did not do anything to alleviate Seungyoun’s distress for it would have only made things worse.

Hangyul unstrapped his guitar and exhaled, all the tension finally leaving his body. “I’m just gonna step out for a while. Smoke break.”

Hangyul Lee was an alpha. He was built like an alpha, smelled like an alpha, looked like an alpha. But Hangyul did not act like what is expected of him. Deep down, he was a bigger consternation than Seungwoo. His secrets hid behind his thick veil of practiced apathy. Hangyul was passive and almost quiet to a fault. His personality was the polar opposite to Jinhyuk’s and maybe it was also the reason why they clicked so well together. They were like hemispheres of a brain, their dynamics suited each others’ preferences like puzzle pieces.

Hangyul only ever reacted when it was about Yohan. The beta vocalist was his kryptonite and his catharsis shrouded in the most cloying rose. Seungyoun wondered how they had come down to this, how did they ever succumb to an endless cycle of twisting metaphorical daggers into each other.

Seungyoun found Hangyul sitting by the edge of the dock where his shoes barely skirted the surface of the water.

“Your smoke break is taking an awfully long time.” Seungyoun sat beside Hangyul and shivered as the afternoon wind seeped through his bones. Hangyul brought the charred stick of cigarette to his mouth and inhaled a long drag before tossing the cig’s filter into the water. Seungyoun frowned at the thick cloud of pewter smoke emanating from Hangyul’s mouth. “Heathen. Stop polluting it.”

Hangyul laughed as he shrugged off his black cardigan. He draped the cloth over Seungyoun’s back. “Sorry. Here, don’t get sick my dear omega.”

“Stop calling me that.” Seungyoun complained though he pressed closely as Hangyul coerced Seungyoun with an arm thrown over the drummer’s shoulders. “I’m not your fucking dear omega.”

“I know, though your annoyance brings me happiness.”

Seungyoun frowned, “I hate you.” and inhaled the comforting spice of Hangyul’s scent.

“No you don’t.”

They were quiet for a moment.

“I’m sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have let him get to me. Did I make you uncomfortable?”

“Don’t apologize, I’m fine.” Seungyoun dropped his head on Hangyul’s shoulder. “Are you alright?”

Hangyul stared at the steadily darkening horizon. Seungyoun surveyed the play of shadows on his face, the small painful smile that said nothing and everything all at once. “Sometimes, I wish Yohan’s as predictable as the sun. It rises, it sets; day in day out until kingdom come.”

“You wouldn’t be so caught up in him if he’s predictable. You hate to admit it but you’re in love with him, including his crazies.”

“Thanks for the psychoanalysis my dear omega. Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

“Dunno.” Seungyoun shrugged, “But I’m you favorite person and whether you admit it or not, you like me and my burnt Reese cup smothered in sugar.”

Hangyul chuckled before he pressed a small chaste kiss to Seungyoun’s temple. His scent washed off Seungyoun, soothing. “We all spoil you too much, omega.”

“I deserve to be spoiled. Anyway, I don’t fully understand whatever the fuck’s happening between you two but I’m here, not to take sides because Yohan’s my friend too, but just -- I’m here, alright? If you need to talk about anything I’m willing to listen. We don’t have much to distract ourselves with while we’re stuck in here anyway, might as well become your pseudo therapist. No real promises to be helpful though I give you permission to inhale all the Reese cup smothered in sugar you need.”

“Thanks Younie, I’ll take you on that. You really do smell fucking lovely.”

But Hangyul’s entire being is clouded in roses and they thrive. He lets thorns wrap around his organs as long as they will bloom. They will produce petals tinged scarlet with his own blood. A slow death in exchange for love seemed tragically apt. Seungyoun idly wondered if they were ever going to see the end of it all and if the outcome would be worth all their suffering.

But really, when does it ever?

♬♬♬

Seungyoun was used to chaos. He thrived in perpetual activity, he functioned better in ear shattering loudness..

This time, the surroundings were the complete opposite for it was too _silent_ , whatever beings that lurked in the palpable night was hushed by nature. The stillness was numbing and if Seungyoun closed his eyes he could swear that the walls were slowly closing in upon him. He could not breathe. Unused to the ambiance, Seungyoun tossed and turned, the sheets that scratched against his skin served to do nothing but irritate him further. His mind churned endlessly and he could not keep up with it, he could not control his own psyche.

He thought about himself when he pressed his palm on his soft middle. He should eat less. He was already unsightly enough. He really should eat less. In hindsight, it’s never been about their faces, but Eve had people like Hangyul and Seungwoo who looked like they’ve been sculpted by higher beings. Eve had Yohan and Jinhyuk, both incomparable in their beauty.

And there was Seungyoun and Seungyoun could not even look at his reflection without wanting to punch the mirror. Among other things, this insecurity was deeply embedded into him and it clawed from the inside when Seungyoun had nothing to lull his mind into a deceptive emptiness.

His mind went to Yohan and Hangyul, to Seungwoo and Jinhyuk…and just Seungwoo. Seungyoun’s body casually betrayed him for it tingled at the mere thought of their bassist. Suddenly, the urge to sock himself on his own face became immense. He hated himself, hated how his mind could easily recall the last charged moment he shared with Seungwoo. It was during their last gig. He’d watched Seungwoo play and Seungyoun remembered how the crowd looked at Seungwoo; they like they had been hypnotized. The bassist turned on the balls of his feet and stared directly at Seungyoun - a cue that Seungyoun inadvertently missed for he, too, was entranced. Seungwoo had pushed drenched ebony hair off his forehead, the color of which contrasted perfectly against his faultless alabaster skin. Seungyoun was too enthralled that he had completely screwed up the first few seconds of his solo. He was distracted and he did not like it one bit. He did not like Seungwoo’s effect on him.

And with that, shame took over Seungyoun. He never should even think of developing even more fanciful inclinations for Seungwoo was his band mate and nothing more. He should not even think about those other things that kept him up at the middle of the night lest he incurred Jinhyuk’s wrath.

The thought of their leader seemed to be the last nail sealing his metaphorical coffin shut. To think of it, he could never compare to someone like Jinhyuk and it just seemed so laughably dire that he thought of competing with him for Seungwoo’s attention.

Seungyoun clapped a warm palm to his face and murmured a vehement swear. He rose from the bed and silently padded out of his temporary quarters. The house was so unbearably quiet, the silence seemed to pierce through his eardrums. He walked through the darkened hallway which led straight to the kitchen. He squinted at the man hunched over the rough granite breakfast bar, “Jinhyuk?”

There was a quiet chuckle, “It’s me, Youn _.”_

 _Just his motherfucking luck._ The scent that wafted off Seungwoo is oh so _cold._ He smelled of a pine forest in winter, tinged with the bitter lick of whiskey. “Is that Jinhyuk’s Jack?”

“Will you rat me out?”

Seungyoun stiffly walked to the refrigerator, opened it and grabbed for himself a bottle of water. He was hyper aware of Seungwoo’s presence, of the gaze that bore itself onto his back like a red dot from a sniper’s viewfinder. He wondered how it was possible that he both wanted to move closer and run away. He inhaled, “It’s alright. He secretly liked sharing his stash.”

Seungwoo chuckled, breaking the quiet stillness. “No kidding?”

Seungyoun focused on the numbing freeze of the bottle against his palm. It momentarily distracted him from the bassist. They did not talk. Seungyoun finished his water as Seungwoo quietly nursed a glass half full of Jinhyuk’s whiskey.

“Can’t sleep?”

Seungyoun nodded. “You?”

“I was working my solo with Jinhyuk’s. Both of us were inspired enough to finish it.”

Seungyoun stared at the brown liquid inside the transparent glass. “Does alcohol further spark the creative spirit?” Seungyoun injected the right amount of mirth in his tone, completely ignoring the foreboding that twisted ugly in his gut.

Seungwoo lifted the rim of the glass to his lips, took a long swig and replaced the now empty vessel back to the counter with a muted clink. “I wish. It makes me dizzy, makes me sleep well. I don’t really drink much, enough liquor turns me into someone else.”

“Oh.”

Seungyoun did not look at Seungwoo, thus completely missing the fondness that lit the bassists’ usually vacant eyes.

“I’m going to bed.” Seungwoo announced as he stood right in front of Seungyoun. He patted a paradoxically warm palm against Seungyoun’s right cheek and said, “Have a good dream, Youn _”_

Seungyoun was rooted to his spot, the heat of Seungwoo’s palm lingering almost irritatingly good against his skin.

♬♬♬

It began a routine and Seungyoun performed his routine like a game. It was intoxicating, addicting and he did it again, and again, and again. He put his own sanity on the line and slowly brought down all his defenses. His rationality was consequently lost in the sensation, he lost himself in a pine forest.

It happened like this.

Seungyoun’s insomnia was at an all time high, he often spent nights in this unfamiliar bed with thoughts that kept on screaming at him, driving him mad ever so slowly. He skipped on his orange pill bottles because the medication made him lose focus - he could never afford to lose focus, not now when their career was on the line.

He never mentioned anything to Jinhyuk.

Distracted, he often wandered about in the early morning hours hoping that exhaustion would eventually shut down his aching limbs that came after hours upon hours of recording sessions. The late night walks helped, albeit rarely.

Seungyoun usually stumbled upon Seungwoo during these times. He found the bassist quietly drinking or chain smoking in the patio. Seungwoo often looked lost in his thoughts, his expression was ever so empty. He was still so ambiguous and Seungyoun’s curiosity niggled at him like an insect crawling underneath his skin.

One night, Seungyoun saw the bassist with an unfamiliar acoustic guitar strapped across his back. It was four in the morning, Seungyoun barely questioned the other. Seungwoo acknowleged his presence with a small grin.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

Their shared silence was a familiar friend and it stopped being awkward and started becoming their thing, an understanding. With Seungwoo, Seungyoun did not find the need to put up a front, he did not pretend. He was his most basic self, without the ever present mask of apathy that he hid behind most of the time

“You going out?”

Seungwoo nodded. “Do you want to come with me?”

“It’s four in the morning.”

The bassist raised an eyebrow, teasing. “So? Don’t tell me you’re scared.”

Seungyoun laughed, “Screw you. Lemme just get a jacket.”

The dull shine of the waning moon reflected against the undisturbed surface of the lake. The silence was still overwhelming though Seungyoun is grateful for the sound of their feet quietly coming into contact with the wooden dock. When they reach the end, Seungwoo sat down and allowed his legs to dangle just a few inches above the water. Seungyoun calmly took the empty space behind the bassist and proceeded to stare at the instrument in the alpha’s grasp. “You play acoustic?”

Seungwoo tunes the guitar. Seungyoun stared at his long pale fingers and noticed the way it strummed the strings. “Sometimes. Death metal never gave us a medium for other things, don’t you think so?

The drummer nodded as the bassist started the first few notes of an unfamiliar song. He was not used to the softness of the way Seungwoo played, he was not used to the almost delicate way of which Seungwoo manipulated the strings. It was a far cry from how he usually played, where he slapped the strings of his bass and let the resonant heaviness saturate their music. Seungwoo made himself an essential element to Eve’s sound in this way.

But then he sings. The man’s voice woke up Seungyoun completely. Seungwoo’s voice was almost tender, his clear high tone was beautiful.

He sang a love song though the lyrics are painful, reminiscent of thoughts one would have when one lay cold on asphalt road, bloody and dying. It should be Hangyul’s lyrics and the song was meant to lance, to hurt. But in Seungwoo’s fine dulcet, Hangyul’s poetic pain sounded almost romantic. Seungyoun held his breath and closed his eyes. The song finished.

That was…surprising.

“It’s Hangyul’s lyrics on Jinhyuk’s chords. Hangyul wants me to sing it for a B-side. I told him he was fucking crazy.”

Seungyoun smiled. “I figured as much. He probably doesn’t want Yohan to sing songs about himself again.”

Seungwoo hummed and they remained quiet for a long second. Seungyoun heard every little sound that blanketed them on all sides, the howling of the wind and the scampering of little animals.

“They’re fucked up, aren’t they?”

_Oh._

Seungyoun did not have a single idea how to elucidate on Seungwoo’s afterthought. He brought his gaze down to stare at the surface of the water. “Hangyul wasn’t always like this. I’ve known him and Jinhyuk for years now. It’s Hangyul’s idea to start a band and all. They both played guitar but Jinhyuk was excited to play lead so he could put down some of his own rhythms. Hangyul just stepped down. He didn’t say anything though he was better than Jinhyuk back then. Trust fund baby got music lessons since he was a child.” Seungwoo chuckled. Seungyoun continued. “We found someone to play bass, found someone to sing. And between everything that’s happened to us before you came into the picture, Hangyul had been in the background. Eve was his idea in the first place but it’s in his nature to just give and give. He never wants anything for himself, fucking guy will probably let you walk all over him as long it brings you happiness. Then Yohan came and for once, Hangyul _wanted_ someone. Too bad they can’t ever meet in the middle because Yohan’s blind and Hangyul’s a coward.”

Seungwoo put the guitar away and settled for a long silence as a reply. “I can’t be the one to talk but I just think that it’s not that easy for things to fall into their rightful places. It’s hard to get caught up with someone in this field, not when we’re all just fire and gasoline. To an extent, I understand Yohan. He thinks he’s closed off but I can read through his pretenses just fine.”

“Pretenses?”

“We all need to pretend Seungyoun. It’s the only thing we can do to sell our illusions of grandeur. We all have to put up a mask; we don’t want people to see that we’re merely a bunch of crafty messes going about our days acting like we’re superstars.”

“You’re like him, aren’t you?”

“Like Yohan?” Seungwoo threw his head back and laughed. “You got that right. The both of us don’t want to get too close because we’re fuck shit scared of getting hurt or inflicting hurt. It’s far better to put up a mask and pretend to not give a fuck. What you said about them not meeting in the middle is correct. Yohan refuses to fall through the status quo because he’ll be crossing a bridge that would burn right after and he’s got some ugly insecurity that he wears like makeup and you all think he’s invulnerable, he’s untouchable. In reality, he’s more fucked up than all of us combined but then again, pretend apathy is always better than giving a shit.”

Seungwoo and Yohan’s similarities did not stop at that. They shared a common fondness for self destruction but Yohan eventually learned to put down his walls while Seungwoo’s remained and no matter how hard Seungyoun tried, he could never breach through. Seungyoun realized that he was going to get hurt and whatever he thought he felt for Seungwoo must be firmly put away and shut tight.

Not Han Seungwoo for he was fire and brimstone personified. 

It was nearly sunrise, Seungyoun stared at the slow drag of ochre that was stark against the gray horizon. He thought about Seungwoo, Yohan and Hangyul. He thought about how closed off he normally was, he was the least social creature within their band and he only ever spoke with his members. He was stoic, to say the least, not the best trait for someone who wished to be a rock star. But like this, with Seungwoo beside him, he wondered why he felt like an open book without having to say a single word. He was fond of their silences. He was fond of Seungwoo and his winter and pine forest.

He leaned his head against Seungwoo’s shoulder, compelled by an unseen force. This close, he could smell, petrichor and flowers…carnations.

“You smell nice, _Seungyoun.”_ Seungwoo drew him closer with an arm that he wrapped around Seungyoun’s torso. The drummer fought the urge to shudder. “Like chocolate smothered in…molasses.”

“That sounds sickeningly sweet.” Seungyoun inhaled. He could feel his lungs freeze with the _cold_ wafting off Seungwoo. “Thinking about my scent makes me wanna throw up. It’s a good thing I’m not aware of it until someone describes it for me.”

Seungwoo chuckled, “I love it.” He pressed his nose onto Seungyoun’s hair and inhaled. His arm tightened around the omega’s torso, like it was meant to be there, like it was meant to possess. “I love how sweet it is.

Seungyoun cannot help but tremble. Seungwoo removed his hold like he had been burned. The loss of contact hurt, Seungyoun wanted to pathetically crawl to the alpha’s lap and sob onto the skin of Seungwoo’s neck.

“I’m sorry.” Seungwoo’s voice cracked and Seungyoun pretended not to notice. “Fuck, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s alright.”

It was not.

♬♬♬

Eve’s path to conquest was paved by a seventeen track album that ran for nearly two hours. Their first LP was called _Dawn._ Dawn took a year and a half to compose and record. The last seven were written in a three month period, stuck in a rotten house in the middle of nowhere.

Dawn was not their most sober album. Jinhyuk often recorded his solos drunk out of his mind and ironically enough, his drunkenness instigated some of his best work. This they will realize years later, when Jinhyuk needed to get himself help all the while he catapulted among the greatest.

Hangyul wrote eight songs, Seungyoun another five and the rest shared between Yohan, Jinhyuk and Seungwoo. Like Eve, Dawn was a hodgepodge that embraced their alternative sound but heavily influenced by their thrash roots. Dawn was experimental, it was outrageous. Critiques were torn between calling it an abomination or a masterpiece.

Paradoxically enough, their fame was built on the purest concentration of Hangyul’s suffering, of Seungyoun’s confusion, of Yohan’s inner rage; their lyrics were alive through the inherent genius of Seungwoo and Jinhyuk’s musicianship; they were famous because of Yohan’s voice, who pretended that the very songs that took them to unimaginable heights were all about him

Eve stood together, a packed stadium of screaming people in front of them. Their limbs, thrown across each others’ shoulders, ached. Sweat trickled off one body to the next, the makeup melted off their faces from the harsh glare of the spotlights.

They were _happy,_ for one fragile moment, they felt like they could rule the world.

Seungyoun forgot the ache in his limbs, or the ringing in his ears. He focused on Seungwoo’s touch around his torso and thought that they were so _close._

♬♬♬

“Why are you here?”

Seungyoun stared through the transparent glass wall that separated him from the smoke and numerous bodies that undulated on the dance floor.

“Because I’m not there.”

Seungwoo laughed, “Since when were you this sarcastic?”

“Just a minute ago I guess.” He looked at Seungwoo and grinned.

Past the glass partition, Yohan half straddled Hangyul against the pool table. They were both trashed beyond utter belief and they ignored the apparent consequences of this party when everyone’s sober come morning.

Seungwoo sat beside Seungyoun and stared at their vocalist and guitarist getting it on. “It’s a good thing nobody give’s a rat’s ass about our lives outside our music. That, “ He pointed to Hangyul, “will get us chewed alive.”

Seungyoun shrugged as Seungwoo lit a cigarette. “They’re drunk, they’re in love, give them a break. Hangyul deserves a reprieve.”

Their launch party was downright obscene. Alcohol flowed like a river, powder and pills scattered on every surface akin to hors d'oeuvres. It was a glimpse of heaven from hell. Seungyoun had a hard time stomaching it.

“So you’re not a party person?”

Seungyoun watched as Hangyul pulled Yohan down even further. They were kissing like no one was watching. It’s unsettling.

“I guess you can say that.”

“Youn, I meant to say that you played really well earlier. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned how talented you are.”

Surprised, Seungyoun flushed red. “Thanks. Don’t mention.” His omega was _pleased,_ it pawed at Seungyoun whining, _alpha, alpha, alpha_ and with every fiber of Seungyoun’s being, he stomped at it, violently. _Stop, stop, fucking stop._

He was too focused on suppressing his own biology that he barely noticed when Seungwoo started nosing at his neck. Seungyoun’s composure broke when he felt warm breath on his pulse point. “Seungwoo?”

 _“Seungyoun.”_ Seungwoo lightly grazed his lips on Seungyoun’s neck. The drummer’s mind scattered and a short, unwarranted moan escaped him.

“Fuck.” Seungwoo exhaled, pulling away. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’m so sorry Youn, that was unacceptable.”

There it was again, the _hurt._ It was a specific pain that oddly felt like his intestines twisted around his organs. It was hard to think, to even breathe. Seungwoo stood up and leaves, not before giving Seungyoun a vapid gaze. Seungyoun wanted to say something, to demand something but the plain clouded his head. Eventually the feeling ebbed away, replaced by numbness.

A strong desire for alcohol had him leave the private VIP lounge, he found his way to the bar where he ordered a whole bottle of whiskey from the man who stood behind the counter. The man had an almost feline visage about him, he had sly looking eyes, his hair was bleached blonde, a piercing on his right eyebrow and plump lower lip.

“Great show by the way.” The bartender commented as he placed the bottle in front of Seungyoun.

“Thanks.” Seungyoun thumbed the edge of his crystal glass before taking it to his lips

The atmosphere inside the club was hazy but he still managed to zero out on Seungwoo’s unmistakable winter. Seungyoun turned to seek the source.

He should have never looked.

Seungyoun saw them across the packed dance floor, past the pool table. Alternating reds and purples should have obscured them from vision.

He should have never fucking looked.

Seungwoo was pressed onto the table, empty beer bottles by his head while Jinhyuk’s lips drew a map on Seungwoo’s alabaster skin. Seungwoo anchored himself on Jinhyuk’s neck, completely uncaring.

Every atom of Seungyoun’s body felt like they were being shredded. He did not understand why it hurt so much, so fucking much.

Was he in love with Seungwoo?

“It must be nice, the life you live. Famous, rich and ya’ll can fuck each other without qualms. What a life.”

Seungyoun grasped the neck of the bottle - he reeled from physically seeing Seungwoo and Jinhyuk like that - and guzzled straight from it. The liquor carved a path down his throat and placated whatever pain that pierced.

He rarely got drunk; but that night it seemed necessary to quell the pain his gut.

♬♬♬

The bartender watched the drummer drink, amusement danced on his face. He had seen what Seungyoun had seen and he surmises that maybe becoming Eve’s staff did not seem so bad after all. The band was such an interesting bunch. They were gifted musicians equipped with fucked up lives and enough drama to fuel his interest.

 _Lovely._ Yibo thought as he glanced at half naked Seungyoun sprawled on his couch, just lovely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy holidays! 
> 
> twitter @showmyun


	3. drunks, lovers, sinners and saints

> There's no need to waste my time  
> Spending your life  
> Jumping from sinking ship to sinking ship  
> I think I'd rather drown  
> I know I'd rather drown
> 
> _**'drunks, lovers, sinners and saints'** alexisonfire _

* * *

Seungyoun had had his own share of horrific mornings. His sleep-wake cycle was barely normal as it was. So when he opened his eyes and his brain registered an unfamiliar surrounding, he only groaned. His head seemed to split itself open. “Fuck.”

The room was not his, obviously. He could tell despite the half darkness that shrouded the space from partially opened curtains. It was noticeably chaotic, with clothes almost artfully scattered on the carpeted floor like a crude mosaic. The shelves he saw from where he lay was near bursting of paperback books, music records and a questionable amount of vintage figurines. There was a drum set pushed to the farthest corner and from the chips on the cymbals, Seungyoun deduced that the instrument seemed to be played often.

He rose, clutching his head and ignoring his state of undress. _“_ Jesus, where the fuck am I?” Seungyoun peeked underneath the scarlet sheets thrown over his body and confirmed that he still had his pants from last night.

Last night.

Fuck. 

It was the devil’s whisper. Seungyoun closed his eyes and he could see Seungwoo and Jinhyuk, images of them so vivid, assimilating him in such an unprecedented manner that Seungyoun nearly screamed. The thing was, Seungyoun never thought Seungwoo was the type of person who liked putting on a show. The bassist kept to himself but the way he squirmed underneath a completely wasted Jinhyuk last night was the farthest from _private_ he had ever done. They had half-fucked and completely uncaring of whomever watched.

It was almost desperate.

But then again, maybe the act was solely for Seungyoun. _You can’t have me._ He seemed to convey. For the record, Seungyoun, with his entire fucking being, agreed.

In the end, he ignored the way his temple throbbed. He managed to not crawl his way out of the foreign room. He picked the clothes he could remember from last night and slipped them to his body. Doing the walk of shame this late in the morning was truly tragic even for the likes of Seungyoun who had enough one night stands to last a lifetime.

The door, after he showed himself out, immediately led to a largely spartan sitting room. As he gazed around, Seungyoun idly wondered which poor soul had to handle the brunt of his meltdown last night.

A sizzle derailed Seungyoun’s train of thoughts. He glanced to the kitchen and saw him there. The man’s blond hair was pushed away from his face with a plastic band the color of hot pink. He wore a shirt. Small mercies. The man reeked of strong mint and Seungyoun’s ever perpetual instinct told him to back away in the presence of an unfamiliar alpha.

His shame burned hot; his face was probably scarlet.

“This is fucking embarrassing.” Seungyoun began. He palmed the back of his neck. The skull splitting headache continued on its merry way pounding through his brain. “I’m really sorry.”

The man chuckled. He did not spare Seungyoun a glance. “Good morning, I’m Yibo.”

“Seungyoun.”

“Do me a favor and have some breakfast. I made enough for two.”

Seungyoun could have easily turned the offer down but something in Yibo’s quiet tone was overwhelmingly authoritative and his scent overpowered the air. Seungyoun shuddered.

“I’m an omega.”

“What?”

Yibo laughed as he put a plate of food in front of Seungyoun. “I know. I don’t smell like sugar and everything nice but my craving for alpha cock kinda gives me away, don’t you think so?”

Seungyoun chuckled. He took the vacant seat before the breakfast counter and ogled the plate of perfectly browned pancakes. Yibo handed him a fork with a tiny smile. “Sorry. It’s the only thing I can cook.”

Seungyoun shrugged. The situation was bizarre to some degree. For one, he did not usually stick around. When the lust was abated, shame was an inevitable visitor and Seungyoun still had not learned to ignore it. They quietly ate breakfast and it was awkward though not the kind that made Seungyoun’s skin crawl. He chewed his pancake and stole glances at the man in front of him every once in a while.

“You’re quiet handsy.” Yibo began. “Do you know that?” Oh he knew, he simply waited for Seungyoun to confirm it.

The drummer almost choked. “I’m sorry. I was irresponsible. You’re free to press charges.”

Yibo did not speak for a long minute. His amber eyes raked over Seungyoun’s frame with mild curiosity. Seungyoun studied him under daylight, noted his obsidian roots and his chipped black nail polish, the way he seemed sly. Then, Yibo shrugged. The action reminded Seungyoun of a feline’s grace.

“So you don’t know what went down last night?”

“I don’t know. Did we fuck?”

The peculiar stranger stared at Seungyoun and proceeded to burst into mirthful laughter. “I wish. I’d willingly let you nail me down though. But nothing happened. You got drunk and took some of the shit going around the place like the fuckin’ plague. You were a disaster waiting to happen and I’m a bleeding heart. I brought you here because you weren’t lucid enough. You insisted on playing my drums and I gotta say, your reputation truly precedes you.” 

Seungyoun palmed his face. The taste of regret and shame was bitter on his tongue. After all these years and after all the shit he had gone through, he still has yet to learn the delicate art of making better decisions. “Yeah. I think I’m gonna go crawl in some corner and just fucking cease to exist.” 

“It’s okay. But Eve’s really something else. All of you guys do that?”

“What? Fuck each other?”

“Yeah, among other things.”

“Sometimes.” Seungyoun thought he divulged too much. “They fuck each other. I’m usually out of the equation. Will you sell this? I don’t think you’d earn that much from ratting us out; we live off scandals and rumors.”

“Guessed that much. But no, I was just curious.”

Seungyoun did not say anything else. They finished their breakfast in relative silence.

♬♬♬

The aftermath of the party came in waves.

It was afternoon when Seungyoun let himself into the band’s shared flat. It was a good place, the expensive sort of place - some building in the poshest district of the city. They had a studio installed, complete with fancy equipment and shiny instruments. The place was a far cry from the shabby apartment in the worst side of town they used to rent.

They have gone far; but remove fame and money off the equation and they were still the same, if not worse. They were finally the people they dreamed about but reality was always different from fantasy.

It was the complexity of human beings, for we are never contented no matter the highs we reach.

Seungyoun stepped inside, quietly, like a teenager expecting to get the worst scolding of his life for breaking curfew. He filed his shoes in the cabinet they have in the doorway. He never looked up, not until he heard the muted sound of glass shattering.

“Yohan, _fuck_ , if you’re gonna act like this just fucking kill me!”

Hangyul’s voice carried into the space, loud, anguished. Seungyoun thought he was hearing the guitarist for the first time. Seungyoun calmly walked into the sitting room, where Yohan’s cloying rose thickened the air. Seungyoun thought he will choke on it.

“Hangyul, _please - “_

Seungyoun’s appearance cut whatever it was Yohan would say. He glanced at the pair. Hangyul was half dressed and he looked pained. Yohan had bruises on his neck, displayed like morbid scars from a war he barely survived. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot and he looked equally pained as Hangyul.

“Seungyoun?”

Seungyoun did not know what to say. Yohan’s scent still clouded his senses. He stood there, caught in between his band members’ private battles. Seungyoun wanted to disappear, vanish into thin air or mold into the floor - whatever came first. Finally, after a long tortuous moment, Seungyoun found his footing. He managed an apology. His voice was weak. “I’m going out.”

Hangyul shook his head and ran a hand though his untidy hair. “It’s alright, Youn. You shouldn’t have seen that, I’m sorry.” He gave Yohan one more look - a thousand words elaborately portrayed by a single expression. It was something only Yohan was meant to see, something so intimate that it felt sacred.

Hangyul left after he grabbed a pack of cigarettes lying idly on the coffee table and a jacket that was carelessly thrown over the backrest of the living room couch. Not another word left his lips.

Yohan watched the door close behind Hangyul and when it clicked shut, he braced himself against the counter that separated the kitchen from the sitting room. He sucked in an unsteady inhale.

“Enjoyed the party last nigh, Youn?”

“I didn’t.”

Yohan chortled. He was worse than Seungwoo in this sense for his walls were never down, not for anyone else, not even for himself. Seungyoun stared at the rigid line of the vocalist’s back, stared at the way he held himself. It was like putting a lid over an overflowing cup. Seungyoun wanted to leave but it seemed inhuman to allow Yohan to deal with his own demons. He stood there and waited.

“I fucked up, Seungyoun. I fucked up real fucking badly.” Yohan’s voice broke through the near end of his statement. Bloodshot eyes turned glassy with tears, though he never allowed them to fall. Seungyoun approached him. He walked on shattered glass. He sat beside Yohan and did not speak.

“Why can’t he fucking let this go.” Yohan seethed, shaking fingers pressed against his pale face. “It’ll be easier if he went ahead and find some wide eyed omega before he realizes that I won’t - I fucking _can’t_ , give him what he needs. What’s so hard to understand? Fuck.”

See, Yohan and Hangyul have had this mutually toxic relationship. They kiss and fuck and they were everything else in between enemies and lovers. Seungyoun always found them ambiguous to an extent, he could never predict what sort of turn they were going to find themselves in. Eve knew about them, Jinhyuk and Seungwoo and even the rest of their fucking staff. It was an unspoken pact between them; they were band members but exclusive of whatever happened in their personal lives. So Jinhyuk never meddled. He watched as Yohan metaphorically stabbed Hangyul. They all watched as Hangyul’s pain bled all over them.

Seungyoun was rendered speechless for a short moment. He sighed. “Don’t kick me, but I just think you’re not in the position to lord over Hangyul’s feelings. As much as I know, he loves you. He’s always wanted you and you alone and don’t get this wrong, you’re both my best friends but I’m fucking sick of seeing you string him along without planning to be responsible for whatever hope you could ignite. It’s simple, quit acting like you love him if you don’t.”

Yohan stared. He just stared at Seungyoun as if the drummer had split him open and gutted him. Seungyoun forced himself to welcome the vocalist’s gaze.

“Let me ask you this, do you honestly think that I’m hurting Hangyul? You did not pause, just for one bloody second, to think that maybe I’m getting myself crushed over this too? You don’t actually think this is easy for me, Seungyoun? You have got not a nick, not a single idea of what I feel.”

Yohan’s rage was clear as daylight on his distraught face. Seungyoun knew he fucked up. “That’s not what I meant.” His head still ached.

“Oh believe me, Seungyoun, I get it. You don’t have to fucking elaborate because it’s always gonna be me, ain’t it? After all, you know him longer than I do but get this, you don’t know _anyfuckingthing_ about us, you can’t assume what I feel. Whatever the fuck’s happening between us doesn’t concern the rest of you. I do my job, you do yours.”

Yohan’s voice was in its lowest register. Seungyoun could hear so much anger in it - anger and hurt and pain. “We’re in a band Han. You’re my family. I’m sorry it came out like that. I swear, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

Yohan laughed, “Jesus. After deliberately putting all the blame on me, you’re going to fucking tell me you did not mean it? You know why I don’t say shit, it’s because I don’t wanna drag you guys into my fucking mess. I’m doing a mighty damn job, am I?” The vocalist scoffed. “Thank you Seungyoun. Amazing of you to think that just because Hangyul comes running to you, he’s automatically the victim. Thank you so fucking much.”

“I’m sorry, Yohan.”

“Can you leave me, please?”

Seungyoun stood up like his seat was burning. He turned for the door just before the first uncontrolled sob left Yohan’s lungs.

Do you know what happens when you metaphorically, _proverbially,_ go out of your mind?

It was simple, as much as the words contain such heavy connotation, going out of one’s mind would simply feel like a shattering emptiness, like standing underneath a cascading waterfall, like you could breathe fire out of your windpipe.

Seungyoun’s mind reared its ugly head. He stumbled out of the flat, oblivious of the tears that scalded the skin of his cheeks. _I fucked up. I’m going to ruin the band. Why did I have to open my fucking mouth?_ His heart rate skyrocketed. His breathing came out in short gasps. He was a man drowning. Seungyoun clamped his teeth over his lower lip. He did not feel pain and he hated himself. He hated himself so fucking much.

Jinhyuk and Seungwoo found him in that state. Their combined scent was horrendous, exacerbating Seungyoun’s ill feelings. He felt like an uncapped wire, cackling with electricity, like he could breathe out lightning if he so wished.

He wanted to collapse into Jinhyuk’s sea breeze but before the alpha could take one step closer, Seungwoo’s hands were already on his back. His winter was exceptionally freezing. Seungyoun wanted to sob. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I’m so sorry.” He repeated like a prayer. His body shook and he was such a pitiful sight. Seungwoo’s palm pressed onto his lower back, unsure. Seungyoun leaned into the touch like his life depended on it. Seungwoo whispered comforting words, half meant assurances. Seungyoun’s brain barely registered anything.

“What happened?”

“I don’t think he’s in the right head space to explain shit right now.”

Seungyoun wanted to disappear.

“Annex.” Seungwoo said, “Let’s go to the Annex. Need anything?”

Seungyoun shook his head.

**♬♬♬**

He woke up in a familiar surrounding. The faux leather of the couch he was sprawled over was too hot against his skin.

The Annex.

Seungyoun stared at the drab gray walls. Yohan’s white hot words repeated in his mind and he wanted to beat himself up all over again. The frontman was right. They had boundaries and he crossed one too many. He was presumptuous and he deserved the lashing that followed.

Hell, his head fucking ached. He felt hollow.

The Annex was Eve’s main studio. It was the basement of an industrial building located in the edges of the city. It had slate gray walls, cement floors, and a ceiling that was crisscrossed with insulated wiring. The place was uninspiring but the architecture provided the best acoustics.

A steady rhythm bounced against the walls. Seungwoo was in the recording booth with his old Thunderbird. He stood on the other side of the heavy soundproof glass wall that sliced the room in half. His eyes were closed and his alabaster fingers wrapped around the neck of the guitar, his palm bore down on the strings.

Seungwoo Han was bloody fucking brilliant.

Eve was never the sort to ride the tide of what was shiny and popular. The band was experimental since their indie years and nothing was over sensationalized about them except for the day to day scandals that plagued their career.

But Seungwoo was something else entirely. His technique was lauded even by the sharpest critiques and worshiped by fans. Bass players were usually pushed aside for craftier guitarists but never Seungwoo. He was beautiful and if Seungyoun believed in a god, he would have said Seungwoo’s skill was god given. He was enthralling, every inch of him. He commanded his instrument the same way he commanded his audience.

It took a minute before Seungwoo realized he was being watched. He volleyed Seungyoun’s gaze and mouthed, “Feeling okay?”

Seungyoun managed a small smile. Seungwoo abruptly stopped, the music ceased to a screeching halt. “I’m fine.” The words were acid on his lips. He was miles away from _fine._ Seungwoo put the bass away and exited the recording booth. He reeked of Jinhyuk’s sea breeze. Seungyoun hated how the scent of another alpha clung to him.

“You look like shit.” Seungwoo remarked as he ran his fingers through his hair. “I guess I’m not the only one who’s had a rough day.”

“Yeah, it was hell alright.”

“I presume you don’t wanna talk about it?”

Seungyoun shook his head. “I wanna kill myself. Any news on Hangyul?”

“Jinhyuk’s on leader duty. Told me he’s got to get his kids to quit fighting and start straightening up their act before they damn us to all hell.”

Seungyoun chuckled, “Typical. Though this time, it’s my fault. Shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, it’s not. We’re in a band and we’re already fucked up as it is. Letting Hangyul and Yohan hurt each other will affect us all in the end. You have the right to say something.”

“Thanks. I needed to hear that.”

Seungwoo sat beside him. Seungyoun met the bassist’s steady gaze. For the first time, he noticed that Seungwoo had flecks of green in his hazel irises. Interesting. “Hey, don’t beat yourself up too much about them. It’s not your fault; shit just happens.”

Seungyoun could still remember how Seungwoo looked underneath Jinhyuk just last night. It seemed like forever ago. _What do you want from me?_ He wanted to demand though he knew that he should never.

He was such an enigma. Seungyoun always wondered if he could cut into Seungwoo’s layers deep enough to finally understand how his mind worked. Maybe in another lifetime - if they could meet in circumstances that did not allow so many fucking secrets. Maybe in another lifetime when Seungwoo could be as vulnerable as Seungyoun.

But maybe Seungwoo was a constellation, a set of stars that dipped so closely to Seungyoun’s being that he could never begin to imagine an alternative reality where he will not be ready to get pulverized under the weight of his own emotions. Even in another lifetime, he will always fall victim to Seungwoo’s wintry pine forest.

“I know.” Seungyoun said. He looked away and when he closed his eyes, he could picture the remnants of green in Seungwoo’s irises. Seungyoun wanted to curl into a ball and have the alpha freeze the very oxygen in his lungs. “But we’re all bound to hurt each other in the end. I just did it before you guys could.”

“Do you regret it?”

“Yeah.” Yohan’s white hot rage seemed to have been burned into his eyelids. “But if it would make a difference then I’ll do it all over again.”

“Of course you will because you care too much. In the end, you’re the only one who gets hurt.”

“How about you Seungwoo? Do you care about us outside the music and this fame that’s got our heads all fucked up?”

“Do you want the truth?”

“I’d appreciate it.”

“I don’t know, Seungyoun. It’s about the music. I don’t wanna care too much. It almost killed me before.”

Seungyoun wanted to ask questions. He wanted Seungwoo to elucidate. It seemed wrong.

_What happened to you and why do you hide your pain?_

“I can hear you think too much Seungyoun.” He gave Seungyoun one of those secretive smiles that showed and hid all. “Don’t. We’re all good as long as we can play and try not to fuck each other up.”

_What do you know when your wall of practiced indifference is higher than it could ever be?_

"Yeah. You're right."

♬♬♬

Seungyoun and Yohan's rift waned over time but they were like broken China delicately pieced together with melted gold.

They toured that year and then the year after.The label thought they were popular enough to branch into a wider audience. _Dawn,_ and their next record _Midnight,_ hit platinum in multiple countries across different continents. They found themselves playing for foreign faces, for people who did not speak their language, for people who looked nothing like them.

Seungyoun used to dream of this once. They were really children then. He could still remember how the air reeked of Hangyul’s spice tingeing the scent of Jinhyuk’s ocean - a breeze that blew unceasingly throughout Seungyoun’s later years. They were happy then; they were optimistic about the far distant future. They would talk about a thousand and one possibilities when their big break would come, what they would do, what sort of people they wanted to play their music to. Jinhyuk’s high spirits never wavered those days, he was their strongest pillar. His favorite thing was to talk about stadiums, how they would scream into a crowd and it would scream back at them, infinitely louder than they could imagine. Jinhyuk’s hope was akin to a promise. Seungyoun often slept and saw the lights, heard the crowd in his head.

They were supposed to be happy.

And here they were. The lights were brighter than Seungyoun could have ever imagined, the crowd’s screams would echo in his ears louder than Yohan’s reverberating voice.

They should have felt adored but why did it all feel so empty? Country after country, state after state, city after city - nothing was as good as their dreams. The real thing no longer felt like a passion, it felt like a job. A tedious, awful job. Seungyoun’s arms ached and he could never ignore the pain. He could never focus on what was ahead.

Hangyul finally cracked - or he had already cracked a long time ago and this time he shattered completely. He had his own addiction like the rest of them but Seungyoun never thought that a day would come where he became witness to Hangyul’s undoing. He was supposed to be their voice of reason, his levelheadedness balanced all of Eve’s erratic tendencies. 

The guitarist stopped chasing. He woke up, took one look at Yohan and decided that he has had fucking enough. He blazed through people - legions of them. He never had a preference. He would have fucked anyone as long as they were willing to fall unto his bed and distract him from Yohan’s rose.

It was like watching a friend succumb to an illness. Seungyoun did not want to blame Yohan but it was hard not to.

What Seungyoun did not know was that Yohan killed himself over what happened. Yohan has always hated himself, hated how prideful he was, hated his toxic understanding of human dependency, hated how he refused to admit he needed help. Hated how he refused to change. He was dying - literally, some cancer on his throat that would probably end his career and his life in a few years.

He loved Hangyul, he did. But Yohan can never give Hangyul what he would want, what he would need. He would be dead soon enough.

He was no martyr. He just loathed being pitied. He would rather breathe fire than weep for help.

♬♬♬

Seungyoun found Yibo on the same spot in the Annex. He was bent over the workstation, fingers tinkering through the audio control surface as Yohan’s recorded voice bounced through the walls.

Two years passed since they first met. Eve stood on the very pinnacle of relevancy. Their faces emblazoned on magazines and billboards, their songs hit the roof of every known chart across the goddamn globe.

He breathed against the back of Yibo’s neck. The drum tech chuckled, “Quit that.”

“You do know you could be out there receiving all sorts of adoration if you would quit hiding in here and actually just play?”

Yibo scoffed, “I’d rather not get even more fucked up. I don’t wanna be like you, darling.”

“Motherfucker. I take full offense.”

“Please. You won’t survive without me. I’m the best fucking tech slash producer there is and I happen to thrive as witness to your drama, not get involved in it.”

Seungyoun rolled his eyes, “I know. You’re a bastard.” 

Yibo’s fingers worked quickly. One second, he was onto the audio panel, the next he was pushing Seungyoun against the glass wall of the recording booth and pressing his lips against the drummer’s. The seam of Yibo’s mouth slotted perfectly against Seungyoun’s and he always smelled crisp - mint.

“I get so lost in you.” Yibo’s lips traced the words onto Seungyoun’s jaw. “But I wonder how you’d reek _want_ if Seungwoo walked into this room and saw us. Will you bend over for him, darling? Let him watch?”

Two can play this game, “I’ll let him do whatever the fuck he wants. You can watch.”

Yibo’s fingers pressed hard onto Seungyoun’s clothed ass. “That would be glorious.” 

They did not start fucking from the get go.

The second time Seungyoun met Wang Yibo, they were in a meeting. Tour, the management said. Eve needed to hit the road before the audiences’ interest wavered and the wick on their popularity ran out. Of course the band barely had anything to say against it.

“Additional staff,” Seungyoun remembered the way one of the label’s execs looked him up and down. He was an alpha, he reeked of wax and burnt wood - scent viler than his personality and looks combined. “will be provided. Additional techs, PAs and MUAs, all you have to do is focus on your music.”

Seungyoun felt like he stood naked under the alpha’s lascivious gaze. He braced himself, hoped he did not reek his distress enough to alarm Jinhyuk and the others.

“You okay?” Strong mint. If Seungyoun did not know better he would have screamed at the sudden contact. He could feel the man’s breath against the back of his neck. “If an alpha looked at me like that. I would have fucking gouged his eyes out.”

Seungyoun glanced back. The man had swapped his long-ish blond for some freshly cut jet black. He looked different, more menacing somehow. “Yibo right? What are you doing here?”

“Apparently,” Yibo murmured, “I’m your new drum tech… among other things, you want me to gouge his eyes out, boss?”

Seungyoun laughed. Jinhyuk looked at him funny. “I’m used to it. Don’t.”

The meeting concluded shortly. Seungyoun later eyed Yibo. They were in the company’s cafeteria, two cups of bland coffee in between them. “Are you sure you’re an omega?” The drum tech chortled, “Do you want me to bend over and present myself, boss?”

“You’ve got to tone down on the sarcasm. Jinhyuk will deck you one of these days. Don’t let him.”

“It’s part of my charm.”

“Some charm, that is.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

♬♬♬

The tour was successful - sold out stadiums across the country. The news sing their praises, it was the _news,_ not the tabloids. They were heralded by so much fanfare that sometimes, they thought of intentionally fucking it up. It was ironic how much Seungyoun missed being categorized as ‘experimental garbage’ at least he had a distraction. He had an excuse to drown in his music until it was all he ever heard. But now they were like gods. They could have put out the basest mediocrity and the world will grovel at their feet, weeping for _more._

Seungyoun stared at his reflection real hard sometimes because he cannot recognize the person that stared back at him. When he looked at Eve, he barely recognized them too and he still wondered how a family can turn to strangers.

♬♬♬

Jinhyuk was drunk, he always was, though this time something was definitely off. See, alcohol made Jinhyuk’s playing better. He often sprayed the audience with the remaining beer or whiskey he had consumed onstage and they would frantically wave their hands like receiving some sort of epiphany from god himself.

Seungyoun concentrated on his tempo, though he could probably play even with his eyes closed, the beat so closely ingrained into his system he was barely himself without it. It was then that he registered the change or the fuck up per se. Through Seungyoun’s right ear came the shrill, sudden cut of Jinhyuk’s mistake. It was there and gone, quickly covered by Hangyul’s impromptu section. Seungwoo’s sultry stage persona vanished for a fraction of a second, gaze straying away from the audience and onto Jinhyuk.

Jinhyuk, ever perfectionist drunkard, never fucked up. He did not allow himself to.

The crowd never noticed, busy screaming their heads off to even focus on the music.

“What happened?” Was Yohan’s first query as soon as the encore finished and the mics were disconnected. “You don’t usually go out of tempo?”

“I’m,” Jinhyuk gasped. It was the most sober he sounded in years. “ _fuck._ It’s my rut.”

Hangyul’s arm was around Seungyoun in a second, pulling the only omega back. “What the fuck? You haven’t been in rut in nearly half a decade. I thought those pills worked?”

“I don’t know. _It hurts, fuck.”_

“Gyul, do me a favor.” Seungwoo said as Jinhyuk, half out of his goddamn mind, went for Seungwoo’s jaw. “Get Seungyoun the fuck away from here. Go back to the hotel, Yohan, go with them. I’ll deal with him.”

_“But - “_

Stupid. He was always so fucking stupid when it had something to do with Seungwoo. But what, Seungyoun? Would you like to offer yourself to an alpha in rut and let Seungwoo watch? Would you be so kind to wrap yourself with a red ribbon and be someone’s present as long as Jinhyuk did not get to have Seungwoo?

But what?

Stupid fucking fool

Jinhyuk’s scent was getting to all of them. He smelled so strongly of seawater and a raging storm.

“Get the fuck out.”

“Let’s go.”

♬♬♬

Seungyoun’s skin felt like it was coming off his bones that night. He was uncomfortably hot among other things. When he closed his eyes, he could see the way Jinhyuk considered the pale curve of Seungwoo’s neck with barely concealed lust.

Fuck, he hated it. He hated everything about it. Why did it have to be Jinhyuk? Why did it have to be the leader he respected like a fucking blood brother and why did Seungwoo gravitate towards him like a moth to flame?

“I never would have thought there was an alpha in question.”

“Oh shut up.”

“Listen,” Yibo carefully carved his words as he stared at the hypnotic amber liquid swaying at the bottom of his crystal glass. He took a long swig. “You’re the only omega in a band full of alphas who would probably cry bloody tears just to get a piece of you and yet if a strand of your hair gets touched the wrong way, I’m sure they’d fucking raze the world unto the ground to avenge your honor. Don’t get me wrong _darling_. I was half betting you fucked all of them.”

“You’re not helping.” Seungyoun raked his hair back. His skin burned. “They fuck each other. I’m usually excluded.”

Yibo chuckled. “How interesting. So who would it be? Jinhyuk or Seungwoo? It can’t be Hangyul, though I’ve noticed that he’s awfully protective of you.”

Seungyoun eyed the drum tech, “You don’t shut up, do you?”

“Oh come on, Seungyoun. We’re not strangers to each other, entertain me.”

Seungyoun considered the statement. “Remember what you told me before?”

“Jog my memory.”

“That you’d let me fuck you?”

Yibo put down his crystal glass and stared at Seungyoun. He sat on the divan, body slouched. “Come here.”

Seungyoun considered the other omega for half a second; the air in their hotel room was tinged with Yibo’s unprecedented mint laced with the bitter lick of scotch - he approached him.

♬♬♬

“It’s Seungwoo.” Seungyoun murmured as he reached for Yibo’s lit cigarette. They were naked, legs strewn across each other’s. “Always been Seungwoo.”

“Can’t blame you. Motherfucker looks like a god and smells divine. I’d let him fuck me six ways to Sunday too.”

“He’s got this,” Seungyoun brought the cigarette to his lips and inhaled, “aura about him. He’s all secrets and I’ve always wanted to uncover his layers, peel him off if you will. Remove all this fucking mystery. Maybe I’d get over him if it came to it.”

“Darling, you’re in love with him. Shame.” Yibo laughed, he pondered over his statement like some sort of erudite upon his greatest thought, “You’d bleed yourself dry before it happens.”

Seungyoun hated how correct the other was. “I hear them sometimes, the walls aren’t thick enough to drown out the sounds.”

Yibo took the half-charred cigarette from Seungyoun’s fingers and tossed what remained into the ashtray on his side table. “And what do you feel about that?”

“Fucked up as it may sound but it’s often inspiring.”

“You write songs to the sound of your band members’ fucking?”

Seungyoun laughed. For the first time in a really long while, he felt genuinely amused, he would have convinced himself he was actually happy. “Does it not tickle your fancy, _darling_?”

“What sort of fucking band have I gotten myself into?”

“The sort that would fuel your interests. Your words, not mine.”

♬♬♬

“Does it sound off?” Seungyoun had a frown on and the tips of his fingers had cuts from how hard he dug the strings to the fret board. They were in the Annex, it was somewhere between midnight and five am, Seungyoun was not sure. He stopped looking when the clock struck two. Across the glass partition and in front of the sound control panel, Yibo yawned. He stretched as he spoke, “Do you want an honest opinion?”

Seungyoun rolled his eyes. “So it does sound off.”

“Darling stick to the drums and let the guitarists do their stuff. Your playing is awful.”

“Gee thanks.”

“What the fuck’s gotten into you anyway?” Yibo’s voice rang clear through the intercom. “Acoustic guitars and these nauseatingly poetic lyrics. When the hell did you write love songs?”

Seungyoun pondered over the question as he stared at the familiar acoustic guitar snug on his thighs. It was Seungwoo’s old Lakewood guitar. Seungyoun could still remember the first time he had seen the bassist play. The memory practically branded to the forefront of his memories. He ran his fingers through the strings and smiled.

“I think the appropriate question should be, what in the world are you two doing in here? It’s four in the morning.”

Seungyoun looked up. Seungwoo was there. He stood beside Yibo and his expression perpetually calm that it was unnerving.

“When did you get here?”

“Prince Charming arrived a few minutes ago. You didn’t notice?” Yibo teased. Seungyoun glared at him.

“Prince Charming?”

“It’s what he calls you.” Seungyoun stood up and exited the recording booth, “He’s a big fan. He adores you loads.”

“Thanks.” Seungwoo grinned. “I’m flattered. You’re the new drum tech, right?”

“Wang Yibo, your majesty. Been with you through the tour so I’m not that new.” Yibo turned to the drummer, “Seungyoun’s god on drums but on guitar he’s shit.”

Seungyoun sighed, “One of these days I’m gonna fire you.”

“Please darling, your equipment needs my touch.”

“Guitars, huh.”

Seungyoun hated how beautiful the alpha looked underneath dimmed lights. If he stared further he could probably still pick out the green in those eyes.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Seungwoo asked.

“He’s writing songs and I’m an insomniac.” Yibo quipped as he swept some of the papers strewn over the workstation. He casually handed Seungyoun’s unsaid emotions to Seungwoo with the same glint in his eyes that Seungyoun had long known to be quite sly. “Love songs meant to be played on an acoustic guitar. Fascinating isn’t it?”

Seungwoo leafed through the papers containing Seungyoun’s guitar chords on lyrics that could be better if he was not so sleep deprived when he wrote them. “We have our softer moments despite our death metal tendencies.” Seungwoo remarked as he lifted his gaze. “So, since we’re all awfully awake here. Do you wanna record this?”

“I can’t play for shit.”

Seungyoun rubbed his eyes. They were burning.

“Do you want me to play it for you?”

“Did you just get the chords down, that fast?”

Seungwoo smiled, “I’ve got a good memory. So, you wanna do it? To think about it, I haven’t heard you sing Youn. Not once.”

“I’m a drummer.”

“So?”

“I don’t usually sing.”

Yibo cackled, “Look at you two, you’re so tense. Sometimes I forget you’re in the same band.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Yibo ignored the other omega. “What he meant to say is that, yes you can play and he’ll sing and I’ll work my magic. We’ll then forget this track ever existed for the time being and maybe after half a decade you guys can release it as memorabilia. Sound good?”

“I hate you.” Seungyoun sighed.

“Darling, you love me.”

♬♬♬

Seungyoun sang with relative ease. He did not have Yohan’s range nor Seungwoo’s tone but his voice was acceptable as it was. He was convinced nothing was special about it though it did have this soothing quality. His father, a cellist, once told him he sounded like regular whiskey - smooth without bite, pretty but forgettable.

Everything about Seungyoun was like that, pretty but unremarkable. It did not really matter now. His skills with the drums made up whatever he lacked in other aspects.

He listened to Seungwoo on the guitar and he could picture the bassist’s long fingers against the rosewood fret board. He played with such clinical precision, every note could not have been any more impeccable. Funnily enough, Seungyoun belatedly realized why Seungwoo’s rendition was a replica of how he wanted the song to sound, he wrote it with the bassist in mind.

They finished. Seungyoun opened his eyes and stared at Seungwoo who sat on a bar stool in front of him. His scent made Seungyoun’s knees weak. Seungwoo stood up and took a few unsure steps towards Seungyoun.

“Are you alright? You look ashen.”

Seungwoo held himself back. Seungyoun wondered what was in him that was disgusting enough to warrant this sort of avoidance. Seungwoo made him want to mold into the floor and just disappear.

“I’m fine. I’m sleepless, it happens.”

“You should try and take something for it.”

“Yeah, I should.”

_God._

Seungwoo was practically a stranger after that incident. Whatever connection Seungyoun thought they once had vanished right after he made clear the boundaries of his and Jinhyuk’s relationship.

But sometimes, Seungwoo would get so close. Seungyoun was magnetizing him, something about his burnt sugar scent and his vulnerabilities pulled Seungwoo in inevitable as gravity. They both did not realize. They were too scared to act on what they felt. Ignorance is bliss they would say and the lies they told themselves were far too comfortable to stray away from anyway.

Seungwoo closed their distance. Long fingers wrapped around a thin wrist. Seungyoun was pulled towards Seungwoo. _No, fuck. Not this again._ “Take care of yourself.” Seungwoo breathed the words to the curve of Seungyoun’s neck as he pressed a silver guitar pick, Seungyoun’s silver guitar pick, back to its owner’s palm. “I worry about you.”

Seungyoun exhaled. “You don’t have to, I’m fine.”

“Hey you two.” Yibo’s voice filtered through the intercom, completely shattering whatever sort of tension that was going on between them. “Want baby names?”

The drummer rolled his eyes. “Don’t mind him. He’s completely fucking mental.”

Seungwoo smirked, “I see, I see.”

Yibo’s right eyebrow shot up as Seungyoun exited the recording booth. The drummer looked at the other omega as if he was about ready to throttle the life out of him.

“Don’t kill me. I was kidding.”

“One of these days, I will strangle you. Wait for it.”

♬♬♬

The bar was called _Hive,_ it was famous for its ridiculously expensive drinks and the amount of celebrities that frequented it. It was unusually empty for a Friday night. Seungyoun sat beside Yibo. The latter busy ogling the pretty bartender to pay Seungyoun any sort of attention. “You’re a terrible drinking buddy.” Seungyoun said this like an afterthought. He swiped his thumb on the edge of his lowball, eyeing the hypnotic sway of the dim light bouncing of the amber Dalmore.

“I know.” Yibo replied without looking his way, “Let me enumerate the things you could be talking about instead of being dramatic that I’m not paying you enough attention because I’m feeling severely under fucked and there’s an alpha looking so much like my dinner.”

“You lost me there, Wang.”

“You’re a pain darling.” Yibo sighed, “Anyway, what would be thy woe tonight? Seungwoo, your block, Yohan and Hangyul’s never ending fight - hurry it up, he’s staring back at me.”

Seungyoun shook his head before he took the lowball to his lips. The whiskey carved a path down his throat. “Am I the only one who gets all weak around him?”

“Seungwoo's beautiful but the difference between you and the rest of us, is that you’re wound up so fucking tightly, the both of you actually. He gets a foot closer to you and you smell like an entire sugar processing plant. The molasses drips from your every pore. You stand there and look like the most vulnerable, delectable omega and it ticks him off. He’s still an alpha and one day he’s gonna snap because believe me, he gets affected by you too.”

“Why does he look at me like that?” Seungyoun poured his fifth shot of Dalmore. The alcohol was getting to him, “If he wants to, he could just fucking ask. Fuck, I’ll bend over for him and beg for it. Yet he never does. When it gets too overwhelming he then runs to Jinhyuk. What the fuck does he want from me?”

The crassness evoked a startled laugh from the drum tech. “You’re thirsty but can you be a dear and turn it down a notch?”

“He’s so bloody confusing he gets me writing appalling love songs.”

Yibo finally looked at him. “Why do you wait for him then? You could be out there doing the first move. Don’t tell me that you’re concerned about his relationship with Jinhyuk because we both know that’s practically nonexistent except their rather, er, inspired rounds of fucking.”

“Maybe they’re more than that.”

“Who’re you trying to convince? Me or yourself? ”

Seungyoun shrugged.

“This is bullshit. You’re a coward Seungyoun, that’s it.” Yibo pointed at Seungyoun’s chest. His finger was warm against the skin that covered Seungyoun’s beating heart. “That’s why you can’t do anything about this. You’d rather preserve the status quo because you’re afraid of ruining the band. I can’t say the same for Seungwoo because he’s too fucking hard to read. I don’t know if he likes leading you on or he’s afraid of something. Who in the bloody fuck knows?”

“I hate how you’re always right.” Seungyoun was near drunk. The whiskey carving down his throat was inspiring. “I envy the way you’re so casual about these things. Does it really mean so little to you?”

“I can’t afford emotions, darling.” Yibo scoffed. He had long stopped eyeing the bartender who was now openly staring at him. He continued, “People are naturally inclined to be fickle. They love you now, tomorrow they don’t. Then there’s the pain but in the long run you’d realize you don’t have anyone to blame but yourself. No one asks you to fall but you took the risk of letting go. When you shatter, it’s simply your fault. And frankly, I’ve got no time for that.”

“Crude.” Seungyoun said. He turned to face Yibo and casually threw his arms around the drum tech’s neck. He was properly drunk. “Can I kiss you?”

“What the fuck brought this on?”

Eyes sultry, red on his cheeks. Yibo always found that Seungyoun was exceptionally beautiful like this. Pretty, vulnerable, delectable. Too bad he could never be intoxicated enough to cross a line. He leaned forward. Left palm plastered on Seungyoun’s thigh, right palm drew Seungyoun closer by his neck. If he calculated correctly, Seungwoo would walk into the bar in a few seconds and see them. Time to test a theory.

_Three._

Yibo drew Seungyoun’s plump lower lip between his teeth. Seungyoun mewled.

 _Two._

Seungwoo’s scent was really strong. It reminded Yibo of a blizzard.

_One._

“You two seem busy.”

They parted. Yibo looked at Seungwoo and even in this situation, the alpha was still so fucking unreadable. His face was carefully blank, a perfected visage of utter indifference. Yibo wanted to laugh. Seungwoo can hide behind his practiced apathy but the change in his scent gave him away.

“Finally you’re here. Charming.” He pointed to Seungyoun who was half slumped on the bar counter, dazed. “Take care of Cinderella for me. Thanks.”

_What are you hiding? What are you so afraid of?_

**♬♬♬**

“I can’t believe him.”

It was probably the Dalmore in his veins but Seungyoun could bet that the room was tipping. He could see black couches, he noticed how cold the tiled floor was, there was a Steinway on the corner standing on its own platform, the iconic sticker bombed Gibson Thunderbird hanging from the wall like a plaque of recognition. He had been here before; they were in Seungwoo’s flat.

So, he still had his mental faculties intact, small mercy, but his body was obviously bending to the whims of the alcohol in his bloodstream. “I’m sorry about this, Seungwoo.”

Seungwoo did not answer. He wrapped an arm around Seungyoun’s torso, stabilizing the drummer’s wobbling body.

“Still not much of a drinker are you?”

“Nope.” Seungyoun laughed, “Why do I keep doing this to myself?”

“Alcohol’s good, can’t blame you.”

Seungyoun giggled, “Now _you’re_ enabling my vices.” His face was centimeters away from Seungwoo’s pale neck. Seungyoun inhaled, the scent was getting to him and compounding his drunkenness. Seungwoo carefully laid Seungyoun on the couch. “I’ll get you some water.” Seungyoun hummed his assent. Seungwoo returned not even a few minutes later. He sat on the free space beside Seungyoun and put the glass on the coffee table. The omega stared, “I like your scent.” Seungwoo volleyed the gaze. Drunk as he was, Seungyoun still noticed his irises. _Why in the bloody fuck was Seungwoo so perfect in literally every fucking thing?_

“Really? I don’t know what my scent is.”

“Like winter.” Seungyoun closed his eyes, “You’re a Pine forest in winter. You smell cold.”

“That’s quite awful.” Seungwoo chuckled. Seungyoun could feel Seungwoo’s hand brush against his denim clad thigh. The alcohol made him hyper aware, he could probably hear Seungwoo’s pulse if he listened closely enough.

“Why do you do that?” _Why do you keep pushing me away after I’ve been so vulnerable in front of you? What did I ever do to you?_

“Do what?"

Seungyoun inhaled, “Nothing.”

Seungwoo’s palm was on Seungyoun’s thigh, an unconscious move. “I’m sorry.”

“What?”

Seungwoo inhaled. “The thing, years ago, I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ve ever fully apologized for crossing your boundaries.”

They were quiet.

Seungyoun sat up. He met Seungwoo’s gaze. “I never told you about any boundaries.”

“Do you realize what you’re doing?”

“What?”

Seungwoo leaned forward, hesitance evident in his every move. “I’m at the end of my thread Seungyoun.” He carved the words onto Seungyoun’s neck, his lips brushed skin. “Stop me, please.” Seungyoun shook his head, a vehement “You know what, fuck this.” exited his lips before he shoved Seungwoo down. Seungwoo’s back hit the couch, Seungyoun half straddled him. “I don’t want you to stop.” _Fuck it, fuck it all to hell._ Seungyoun slanted his lips over Seungwoo’s. It was not a kiss, it was a display of rage. Seungyoun wanted to throttle the life out of the alpha.

This was Seungyoun reaching the end of his thread.

Seungwoo, shocked, did nothing but unravel Seungyoun’s sanity further. He pulled the omega closer, palm on Seungyoun’s back, down his thighs. Seungyoun swiped his tongue against Seungwoo’s lower lip. Fingers moved from Seungwoo’s face to his hair, he twisted. Seungwoo groaned. They parted.

“I’ve reached the end of my thread a long, long time ago and it’s all your fucking fault.” Seungyoun seethed. Oh, the alcohol made him brave and incredibly idiotic. “You got anything to say to that?”

Seungwoo was rendered speechless. For the first time since they met, Seungyoun could finally see some sort of emotion playing on the alpha’s face. Seungwoo was…Seungwoo was fucking smiling. He looked happy. Seungyoun wanted to slap him. “What the fuck?”

He pulled Seungyoun down so he could wrap his limbs around Seungyoun’s body. He chuckled quietly. “I’m happy.”

“Why?”

“I just am. Youn, can we stay like this, just tonight. Please?”

At the back of his mind, he knew he would regret this in the morning. But for now, he was safe. He was home.

♬♬♬

“Wooseok Kim. He’s the son of some business mogul. Runs charities as a side hobby. So he’s more or less, a socialite.”

The photo flashing on the manager’s phone was that of a boy. Pretty. He reminded Seungyoun of the angels on the roof of the Toledo Cathedral. Some sort of an untouchable deity. He wants to laugh.

“Why am I doing this again?” Jinhyuk clutched his head. He looked like he just rolled out of bed after a violent brawl. Seungyoun decided not to comment on it further.

“It’s because you fucked up quite badly last night.” Seungwoo outright laughed. The guitarist glared at the bassist. “Shut the fuck up, you were there with me.”

“Oh, but it wasn’t me who got caught shoving his tongue down the one person we should never be seen outside.”

Jinhyuk groaned. “Point taken. I despise you, still.”

“The gist,” The manager stressed. The poor beta looked like he was going to pop a vein any minute now. “is that you need to clean up your act. Just one charity ball, just one. You just have to be seen mingling with this person until you get into the press’ good graces again. Just one. Please. Do you want me to go down on my knees and beg?”

“Fine.” Jinhyuk said, “I’ll do it. But why me? Why can’t it be Yohan instead?”

“Oh shut up.”

Jinhyuk gestured to himself, “People look at me and pray that their children won’t look anything like me. You honestly expect that this person would actually attempt to make conversation? I don’t even think he’d be willing to breathe in my general direction.”

“Oh he will.” Hangyul finally said, “You’re Eve’s lead guitarist, that’s enough to warrant some attention at least.”

Jinhyuk turned to Seungwoo. “Do know that if this Wooseok person sprays me with any sort of drink after I attempt to talk to him. I will choke you.”

“Oh, kinky.” Seungwoo laughed. “I like that.”

“Fuck you Seungwoo Han. Last night was your idea.”

“You’re welcome, Jinhyuk. You’re welcome.”

From his image, Wooseok was the epitome of beauty. Somehow, Seungyoun thought his personality equaled how perfect he looked.

Interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry this took sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo long.


	4. message in a bottle

> _But I should have known this right from the start_  
>  _Only hope can keep me together_  
>  _Love can mend your life but_  
>  _Love can break your heart_
> 
> **_'message in a bottle' sting_ **
> 
> * * *

Jinhyuk has had his own share of bad ideas.

Being the de facto leader of the, arguably, best band that had graced the music scene in the last ten years had its own perks. Those perks however were heavily abused whenever a certain Seungwoo Han was thrown into the equation. The moment he laid his eyes on the bassist for the first time, there was a pull. It never mattered that Seungwoo was alpha himself. See, Jinhyuk never liked to choose. He did not largely give a fuck whether it was alpha, omega or beta. He never cared about sub genders and his attraction chose no one.

Though, he thought, this was all a roundabout way of saying that he has never been romantically inclined towards Seungwoo and his attraction firmly rests on his desire to always have the other alpha. Seungwoo fed right into his ego from the get go. Lissome physique wrapped in alabaster skin, green eyes, sharp words, facetious thoughts. Jinhyuk was acutely aware of how powerful the other was and the fact that Seungwoo, most of the time, allowed himself to be pinned down on whatever sort of stable surface every now and then always satiated Jinhyuk in some odd way. In return, Seungwoo always compelled him into a lot of incriminating situations.

_But this one, this one was particularly bad, he might as well just drop then and there because it was about to have him fucked anyway._

“You’re fucking crazy.”

Jinhyuk was stupid drunk. After years of excessive alcohol consumption, liquor has made him braver in situations otherwise needless of bravery. He had been knocked in the head for careless, salacious or strident remarks screamed thoughtlessly in high end clubs. Seungwoo often mocked him for his drunken temerity.

_You’re intoxicated persona is a constant source of entertainment._

“He hates our fucking guts.” Jinhyuk glowered at the bassist. Seungwoo eyed him with green flecked irises. “Do you really want me dead?” Seungwoo gave him a loaded stare before he proceeded to lick salt off the back of Jinhyuk’s idle left palm. His tongue was warm against Jinhyuk’s skin. The move was deliberately done to further drive Jinhyuk’s insides into a boil. Fuck, he hated Seungwoo sometimes.

Seungwoo did not say anything more, even after he had knocked two shots of tequila back to back. The liquor gave him such a beautiful, deceptive flush. He was a delectable sight.

“Entertain me.” Seungwoo finally murmured, “I want to test a theory.”

Jinhyuk sighed, grabbed the entire bottle of tequila before him, and flushed its contents down his throat. Before he stood up, he dug his teeth into an immaculately cut lemon wedge and made his way across the throng of bodies undulating on the dance floor. He was properly drunk now. Technically he was always drunk, but this time he could not even feel his face.

This person particularly held a loathing for Eve and he was unusually passionate about this hatred more than the regular critic. It used to amuse Jinhyuk, though after a time he found himself more intrigued than amused. The man had an aura about him that pulled Jinhyuk in, stronger than gravity

“Wooshin,” Jinhyuk addressed as soon as he was assimilated with the most wonderful of omega scents. This aspect, Jinhyuk has yet to admit, was addicting to him. It did not resemble Yohan’s cloying roses nor Seungyoun’s sugar, but it did remind Jinhyuk of his omega mother’s flower orchard – tulips, dahlias, _lavender._ Wooshin was a fully bloomed garden in the height of spring.

“What the fuck do you want?” Wooshin snapped behind his usual glass of Manhattan. He was sat before a table right in front of a stage where half naked dancers worked glimmering bodies over stainless steel poles. He was noticeably alone.

The club was saturated with differing scents but Jinhyuk welcomed the sobering delicateness of Wooshin’s lavender.

Seungwoo’s theory was correct. One way or another, Jinhyuk was gravely attracted to the omega. 

He was going to get a harassment charge for this, a punch across the face, or some other equally terrible repercussion but _screw it all to hell._ Jinhyuk leaned down and worked his lips over the seam of Wooshin’s mouth. He issued no warning, no indication. It took a fraction of a second, or maybe an entire eternity, Jinhyuk was not exactly sure, but the next thing he registered were knuckles over his left eye. Wooshin’s lavender was stronger as Jinhyuk’s head knocked against the grimy floor.

Then, darkness.

It took days before Jinhyuk finally realized the gravity of his mistake, like a delayed hangover.

Of course, the bright white light that he had seen was not some sort of divine sign signaling his impending demise but rather the unmistakable burst of a camera flash. The next morning after the admittedly idiotic incident, he had awoken to a terrible throbbing in his left eye. The pain seemed to radiate right onto the back of his skull which was made worse after he had learned that his face, once again, graced the bad sides of celebrity gossip tabloids. _Harassment, misconduct, shame, shame, shame._ Jinhyuk had grimaced as Seungwoo read the entirety of his newly baptized article with the intonation of a pastor on the pulpit delivering an impassioned sermon to an otherwise uncaring listener. Yes, Seungwoo thrived off Jinhyuk’s suffering.

Expectedly, management is duly pissed. Jinhyuk Lee never learned. He was what you would call a modern day virtuoso, though at this rate his alcoholism seemed to gain more traction than his skill. That, coupled with his inherent penchant for career ending idiocy, seemed to be really causing multiple aneurysms for the higher ups.

“Do I really have to do this?” The guitarist groaned. His personal stylist, a petite beta woman with a half sleeve covering her right arm, prodded Jinhyuk’s neck with what could be assumed as a concealer of some sort. “Honestly, if I am to sacrifice myself to whatever entity out there on this _charity gala_ is it better if I can look as close to what I actually am?” He was ridiculously sober even after pouring an unhealthy amount of Jack into his midafternoon coffee. 

The stylist rolled her lined eyes. “You should have thought about that before you had harassed that poor guy. Sometimes, I want to slap you across the head too. You should be grateful he’s not pressing charges.”

Jinhyuk wondered if it was too late to book a flight to the other side of the continent, change his identity and effectively disappear off the face of the planet. Maybe he would just swan dive off the opened window, down fourteen floors, land on his head and crack his skull – whatever happened first.

“I admit, it was completely and totally idiotic of me. What I did was off the charts and that’s a lot considering just what sort of garbage I am. I will try not to let it happen again. The next time I see, Wooshin, I would grovel at his feet and ask for forgiveness. Hopefully this would make everyone happy.”

The stylist hid a pleased smile behind an egregious looking fan brush which she dabbed across Jinhyuk’s cheek. “Do grovel.” Her hand made a quick flick before she put the makeup tool away. “But right now, do try your very hardest not to fuck this up. Your image’s really bad Jin, really fucking bad. Clean it up, okay?”

Jinhyuk sighed, “You think there’d be some sort of wine?”

The stylist gave him a pointed glare, “And maybe while you’re at it, go see a fucking therapist.”

//

Jinhyuk still felt like a sore thumb in this sort of place despite his relative success as a musician. He was used to wild after parties where activities mostly involved an unholy amount of alcohol among other less legal things.

Jinhyuk was not used to _this_. He was not used to brightly lit ballrooms, crystal chandeliers, marble floors, suits and gowns. He was not one for black tie events though the champagne was annoyingly good. Still, he felt like a flaw on an otherwise immaculate canvas that reeked of opulence and old money. To drive a point, earlier, a rotund woman failed to conceal the disgust on her modestly painted face upon seeing the ink that covered the back of Jinhyuk’s palms. He had begged, pitifully, against the silken gloves the stylist had wanted him to wear and thank all gods, the woman’s heart was moved by the pathetic look on Jinhyuk’s face. The Madame, as what Jinhyuk had since labeled her, was otherwise unenthused.

A slender server passed by balancing a tray of glittering champagne. Jinhyuk smoothly took a flute and idly counted just how many flutes he had downed since. He still had yet to figure what his exact role was in this entire thing. The manager was vague about it and Jinhyuk belatedly thought that he should have clarified.

This was entirely Seungwoo’s doing, Seungwoo’s fault, Seungwoo –

_“I’m gonna choke him.”_

“Choke who?”

Lavender. Jinhyuk turned on the balls of his feet and he came just six inches away from the gorgeous face of “Woo –“

“Seok.” The petite omega smiled. His face exuded such beatific grace that Jinhyuk could not even look him straight in the eyes for fear of catching fire. He was an angel and Jinhyuk’s entire corrupted being might combust and he would turn into a pile of ash on the spot where he stood.

“Wooseok Kim, you are?”

But this must be a nightmare because despite the drastic disparity in appearances, Wooseok Kim shared the exact face of the same person who had planted a hard knuckled fist right onto Jinhyuk’s left eye. The lined eyes were gone, burgundy hair now jet black, and Wooseok’s eyes gleamed with unmistakable curiosity that lacked the cold glower of Wooshin’s gaze.

“What the fuck.” Jinhyuk intoned, gripping the thin glass vessel tighter, “This can’t be right. What the fuck?”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry.” Jinhyuk dropped to his knees, gaze lowered to the floor. Wooshin – no, Wooseok’s scent had the unmistakable undertone of something particularly citrusy. Lavender and bergamot. “I’m really sorry.” He began, “What I did was unforgivable, but I still want you to know how incredibly sorry I am for what I’ve done. I am truly, truly sorry.”

The space turned into a mausoleum in seconds as all nearby guests that were previously busy with their own devices had turned their eyes onto the spectacle before them. Jinhyuk Lee, lead guitarist of Eve, on his knees in front of who was possibly the most seraphic human that had ever walked the Earth.

They were quite the sight but Jinhyuk barely even noticed the quiet that enveloped the ballroom like a chilled blanket.

“Mr Lee, please stand up you’re causing a scene.”

Jinhyuk immediately obeyed the command. He rose to his full height and met the gaze of a particularly handsome man who was probably in his mid-sixties, guessing by his pronounced crow’s feet and tasteful salt and pepper hair. And as if commanded by some divine being, everyone turned away and ignored them. Jinhyuk felt like he could breathe again.

“My son what is this all about?”

Jinhyuk blinked. Wooseok’s father was an alpha and his sandalwood was overpowering Jinhyuk’s senses.

Faultlessly, Wooseok batted his eyelashes and carefully shrugged. The action was too graceful in its fluidity, it was like looking at a moving Da Vinci painting.

Wooseok looked and felt unreal. Jinhyuk began to think he had actually conjured him stemming from his frustration over the doppelganger, Wooshin.

“I truly do not know dad.” Wooseok said. His expression was perfectly amicable and his eyes belied nothing. “I think Mr Lee had mistaken me for someone else.”

Jinhyuk was out of words so he just nodded. “Sorry, you’re right. I thought you were someone else. I apologize.”

“It does not matter.” The older alpha gestured and a server immediately strode forward with the same tray of sparkling champagne. “Anyway, thank you for your generous contribution to our causes, Mr Lee.” Jinhyuk was totally unaware of said donation. For one, he did not remember contributing anything remotely generous to an otherwise unfamiliar cause. Fuck it though, he had a nine digit net worth, he could afford to be generous.

“You’re most welcome.” Jinhyuk smiled and hoped he did not look like a complete lunatic. “I would be happy to do it again.”

“Very well then, I shall now leave you two to get reacquainted.” So saying, the old man turned and left. Jinhyuk was acutely aware of the short distance that separated his person from Wooseok’s seraphic aura. He could bet his bottom dollar he would disintegrate into fine dust the moment Wooseok turned his gaze on him.

“I’m very happy to see you here, Mr Lee but would it be a bother to talk to you for a few minutes, in private?”

Flabbergasted, Jinhyuk idly nodded.

He followed Wooseok into a room that looked like a fancy woman’s boudoir and as soon as the lock was firmly in place and the noises of merriment outside drowned, Wooseok immediately slammed him onto the nearest wall, clothed forearm over Jinhyuk’s windpipe. The guitarist wheezed.

“Shut the fuck up.” Wooseok began, the rage in his voice unhinged. “Whatever you know about Wooshin, keep it to yourself. You got me?”

Now, this was more like it. This was reality. Jinhyuk briefly nodded though he was starting to choke due to the pressure over his throat. Despite the unexpected turn of events, Wooseok’s scent still clouded Jinhyuk’s senses. It made him weak. Wooseok made him weak and at the same time, he badly wished to divest Wooseok of his fancy dinner jacket and fuck him senseless until his face flushed in the most endearingly angelic shade of red, until he begged.

“Are we clear?”

“Crystal.”

Wooseok eased his hold. Jinhyuk wondered if it was the alcohol coursing through his bloodstream that was concentrating the citrus undertones of Wooseok’s scent. Impossibly, it had gotten even stronger and it was making quite a cocktail in Jinhyuk’s omega deprived being. He closed his eyes and unwittingly banged the back of his head against the wall. He thought he should utter a prayer to some random divine being because the most beautiful omega in this entire fucking world was within five feet and he was starting to harbor some very detailed thoughts that were otherwise unacceptable any given day.

Fuck, he smelled like a textbook omega – delicate, seductive, _inviting._ He banged his skull against the wall again. “Don’t get me wrong Wooseok but you’re easily the most beautiful omega I have ever seen and your scent is scrambling my brains. I know you’re not doing any of this on purpose and that my reaction is unwarranted but will it be a _bother_ if we can cut this conversation short before I do something completely and totally idiotic, again?”

“That’s you?”

Jinhyuk exhaled. The situation was easily becoming a complete fucking nightmare. “I don’t understand Wooseok.”

“Your scent –“ Jinhyuk saw the omega make a profoundly disgusted expression, or so he assumed it was disgust dancing on the planes of Wooseok’s unblemished face “Forget it. But don’t you dare say anything about Wooshin to anyone in this place, especially my father. Deal?”

 _Please end my suffering._ “Deal. Will I see you again? Can I see you again?”

“Don’t push it, Mr Lee.”

And before Jinhyuk could utter another bargain that seemed to desperately claw its way out of his skin, Wooseok turned to leave. It took Jinhyuk a bit of time to regain some semblance of normalcy. Wooseok’s lavender lingered even without the physical presence of the omega and Jinhyuk, like a starved hound, inhaled it deep into his lungs that even his cells would never forget. For a long minute, he had completely forgotten why he was in that situation in the first place.

“Right,” Jinhyuk slapped a palm over his face. His skin burned. “Gala.” As he exited the premises he vowed to himself that the first thing he would do after he got out of his fancy designer jacket, would be to choke the living daylights out of Seungwoo Han.

//

The twang of electric guitars bounced off the cement walls of the Annex. Jinhyuk hyper focused on the way his fingers cut through the strings and slid across the fret board of his guitar. His brain was in scrambles, the alcohol he had for brunch burned through his esophagus and probably made its merry way to join its previous compatriots in his liver. Jinhyuk was unable to form any sort of coherent thought but frankly he rarely used waking thoughts when it came to his music. Like the rest of Eve, Jinhyuk’s custom onyx Les Paul was an extension of him. He could wield guitars through profound expertise and pure muscle memory.

But there was difference, for once, Jinhyuk _thought_ too much. It was mildly irritating how he ran through each chord with a meticulousness that his intoxicated brain could never keep up with. Everything sounded off, _wrong_. He screwed his eyes shut and gave up. It was twelve noon. He sighed.

“You positive Wooseok didn’t cast some fancy omega spell on you?” Seungwoo chuckled, svelte body casually traipsed into the recording booth. He smelled like winter and he carried his mysterious allure right onto Jinhyuk’s personal space. For a greeting, the bassist gave him a wan smile. “Because you truly look like you’ve seen better days and your material’s…odd.”

“I’m drunk.” Jinhyuk told him. “Very, very drunk and everything doesn’t make sense. His fucking lavender is on everything, I can’t concentrate.”

Seungwoo’s reply was an ambiguous grunt. He heaved his old Thunderbird out of its beat-up leather case. Jinhyuk eyed the instrument, “Feeling nostalgic?” The bassist gave him a dry laugh, it was such a stark difference from his usual apathetic glower. Jinhyuk wondered what had transpired as he was busy getting lost in Wooseok’s orchard.

“We’re both too into our heads over omegas.” Seungwoo said and slung the Thunderbird’s strap over his person. “Wonderful omegas. They’re like walking damnations.” Candle like fingers plucked thick bass strings. “And guess what Jin, we’re programmed to gravitate right towards hell. Beautiful isn’t it?”

Seungyoun. It was always Seungyoun.

Even as Eve’s de facto leader, Jinhyuk rarely poked his nose onto his bandmates’ affairs, external or internal, and he chose for it to stay that way. In retrospect, it made him slightly less effective and people would soon judge his actions to be dismissive, that he did not care, that he was only there for the money and nothing else. Jinhyuk let them judge, let them say whatever they want because no one knew Eve better than Jinhyuk. His band mates took care of their own nuances, smoothed threads of miscommunication amongst themselves in whichever way they pleased, in whichever way that worked best. Jinhyuk trusted them and they have always managed to tide through their differences. Even Yohan and Hangyul, whose mercurial relationship had the capacity to ruin Eve entirely, never deterred Jinhyuk the slightest.

At the end of the day, their music was a patchwork of their problems.

But Seungyoun and Seungwoo were a different scenario entirely. Seungyoun was an open book, he wore his bludgeoned heart on his sleeve and called it a day. Jinhyuk, though sloshed most of the time, still noticed the sharp change of his sweet omega scent in the presence of Seungwoo’s apathetic coldness, or at least until Seungwoo allowed himself a fraction of time to reciprocate and drown in everything Seungyoun. Jinhyuk did not like to press Seungwoo. They fuck to satiate each other and Jinhyuk could not care less if Seungwoo dropped him to fulfill his ill hidden romantic inclination towards the only omega in their band. But nearly half a decade together and Seungwoo never brought it up with him, not even once. Seungyoun was as tightlipped. Jinhyuk was selfish and too drunk to pry. This, he would later realize, would be his biggest mistake. He should have pried, he should have asked, he should have demanded.

“So what’s with you and the angel?” Seungwoo ran his fingers through the fret board. He did not see the pained look on Jinhyuk’s face. “I think I’ll call him that from now on. You can’t stop hinging about him being an angel, so Wooseok Kim is henceforth martyred as such.”

Jinhyuk groaned after making an irrecoverable mistake, yet again. “I don’t know. I can’t stop thinking about him, it’s annoying. I can’t focus.”

“I know exactly what’s happening.”

“Do enlighten me, Seungwoo.” Jinhyuk rolled his eyes, “But don’t try and put me into another incriminating situation because I might literally skin you alive.”

“Your fault, you’re too compulsive.” Seungwoo outright laughed at his face. “But here’s the thing, I’m sure you’re under some sort of biological pull. I know, modern times we’re living, but it’s the only feasible answer. You’re inexorably attracted to his scent and that happens because angel is obliviously drawing you in. It’s all just a cocktail of chemicals in your brain making you stupid.”

“What do you suggest I do?” Jinhyuk ignored the non-subtle swipe at his current situation. He could genuinely see some sort of science behind the reasoning though he was not too sold out on the idea of a _biological pull_. He did not like touching up on his inner mindless beast that acted upon impulse like a fucking animal. That was not his thing. It was the same reason why he had relationships – either sexual, romantic or an odd combination of both – with all sorts of sub genders. His basis for human connection did not have anything to do with impulse. It was all purely attraction completely exclusive of his being alpha. He really could not care less.

But his attraction to Wooseok was on another spectrum entirely. It was not purely conscious. Wooseok simply called out to him. Jinhyuk thought he needed a quick wakeup slap. When the fuck did he start acting like a depraved beast? Jinhyuk inhaled and reasoned that Wooseok was not some sort of alluring siren, and Jinhyuk had enough neurons to keep his sub gender impulses in check.

“You should start on getting to his good side.” Seungwoo’s words effectively dismantled Jinhyuk’s thoughts. For a minute, he seemed to have quite forgotten that his best friend cum fuck buddy was still in the recording booth with him. Usually, Seungwoo’s scent was too strong to ignore. It was physically impossible to not get affected by his cold winter.

But for a minute – a long, long minute – Jinhyuk managed to forget the other stood merely a feet away from him. He blinked. Wooseok was starting to occupy his entire being. Wooseok was starting to possess him entirely and he did that in under twenty-four hours.

Jinhyuk wanted to scream.

//

Children – tiny, tiny children – prowled around Jinhyuk’s legs reminiscent of his febrile nightmares. They looked at Jinhyuk with big curious eyes and if he was being honest, the attention was making a fricassee of his nerves. The look on the guitarist’s face was priceless, even the most apathetic and coldhearted media person smiled behind the camera.

Generous donation, he said, frequent generous donations. Jinhyuk had no idea he would be forced into even more settings that he was not used to, and will not be used to in the next three lifetimes. He was in some kindergarten now, another one of Wooseok’s family’s passion cum charity projects. Management had strong opinions that he should just humor the media for now.

 _How the fuck did I get here?_ Jinhyuk mentally wailed.

“You okay there?” Wooseok scoffed at him, though there was an innocent glint in his eyes. “You sure look like you’re enjoying this.” He had a baby in his arms, drooling away at the junction of his neck and shoulder. Jinhyuk, in that moment, wanted nothing more than to be a child again.

Lucky little bastard.

“You cheated.” Jinhyuk said and looked down at the same toddler who had been unsuccessfully trying to strip him off his cashmere turtleneck for a good part of an hour. Pesky. Cute but pesky. He raised his eyebrow but three year old Jinwoo simply refused to let him live. Jinhyuk sighed. The kid had such a compelling gaze, Jinhyuk felt like a criminal for not acquiescing to his whims.

“Serves you right.” Wooseok laughed, he sounded particularly cherubic. Jinhyuk suddenly desired to disintegrate into fine dust or mold into the floor. “I told you to come see me. I never told you anything about a date.”

“Still unfair.” Jinhyuk heaved three year old Jinwoo into his arms and let the kid trace the barely covered patterns perpetually inked on his neck. Jinwoo looked at him with such open wonder; Jinhyuk wished he did not have to grow up. “This is cheating considering the power you hold over me.”

“I don’t have any power over you, it’s all your fancy imagination.”

Wooseok’s dismissal was legitimately starting to hurt. Jinhyuk was a wounded animal. He shook his head; the desire to apologize was so strong. “I’m sorry. I know I don’t deserve you. I’m truly sorry. You don’t have to think too much about my words. I guess it’s just the brandy talking.” After all, Wooseok was still an infallible omega and Jinhyuk was nothing but an alcohol dependent alpha who knew nothing else but the strings of his guitar and the melodies in his head.

Still, “Is that alright with you? I know I’m dirt, I know I don’t deserve you. But will you let me feel this way? Trust me, I wish I can let this go but I can’t.” Jinhyuk stared at Wooseok’s face, the most beautiful face Jinhyuk has ever seen. His blood boiled, it demanded. It clawed at Jinhyuk like a starved beast and repeatedly howled, _mine, mine, mine._ Jinhyuk screwed his eyes shut, hyperaware of the child in his arms that he decidedly cannot crush and Wooseok’s titillating scent. He put Jinwoo down. The child had sensed Jinhyuk’s unrest and had begun to cry.

“I need to step out for a bit.” Jinhyuk breathed. He needed alcohol, a smoke, some pills – anything that would take his mind off Wooseok – he needed it now. But as soon as he turned, Wooseok wrapped a palm around Jinhyuk’s tattooed wrist. For such a delicate looking creature, his grip was strong enough to cut off Jinhyuk’s circulation.

“Wha—“

“I need you to come with me, just a second.”

Once again, Jinhyuk was pulled toward whichever way Wooseok wished to lead him to.This was quickly becoming their norm, Jinhyuk realized. This, being Wooseok silently dragging Jinhyuk to some obscure location before proceeding to bodily slam Jinhyuk onto whichever hard surface was available. Jinhyuk was simply powerless against Wooseok’s whims and had yet to complain against the omega’s rather less than gentle handling of him. He was not one for complains and if he was being honest, Wooseok’s scent was compelling enough that if Wooseok asked him to jump off the nearest window, he would.

“Stop it.” Wooseok said after he successfully accosted Jinhyuk into what the alpha could assume was the men’s loo. He cannot tell if it was his overarching imagination or Wooseok’s scent had become tenfolds alluring during the time they had moved from the main floor to the washroom. Jinhyuk inhaled, it was not his imagination. Wooseok’s scent was so strong, as if it was provoking Jinhyuk’s dormant alpha. His pale neck flushed the palest shade of scarlet and he scowled at Jinhyuk with the most vituperative gaze he could muster. “Stop it.” Wooseok’s breathing was ragged, “Whatever it is, stop it. Fucking, _stop it.”_

Jinhyuk had no idea what it was Wooseok wanted to stop and in a rare violent outburst, he gently but firmly grasped Wooseok by his arms and shoved him with an almost menacing growl. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not doing anything.” His tone was devoid of emotion and it belied the chaos in his thoughts. His response elicited the opposite reaction that he expected from the omega in his immediate presence. Wooseok simply gazed at him and then he shuffled forward. His pupils were blown so wide it was the last thing Jinhyuk noticed before Wooseok’s lips descended onto Jinhyuk’s neck. The heat of the omega’s lips killed whatever sort of thought Jinhyuk had.

_Lavender and bergamot._

_Lavender and bergamot and…spring._

Wooseok’s scent permeated the room. Jinhyuk could almost see it, an imaginary haze that wrapped around his senses. It was so alluring. Jinhyuk’s mindless beast screamed at him to possess what was his. _Mine, mine, mine._

No.

Despite his dependence to a cocktail of illicit drugs and alcohol, Jinhyuk was more than the whims of his subgender. He was not a mindless beast. The pull of the omega’s scent was strong, _too strong –_ Jinhyuk pushed Wooseok and he was quickly becoming conscious of his ragged breath. Wooseok had sweat dotting his hairline; his pupils were still dilated. He was a picture straight out of Jinhyuk’s fevered dreams. “Snap out of it.” Jinhyuk gnashed his teeth. His body began to simmer. It was _hot._

_Was this hell?_

Wooseok pawed at Jinhyuk’s front, the gesture was almost desperate. “W-what the fuck is this? What are you doing to me?”

Jinhyuk was as clueless. He managed to fish his phone from one of his back pocket, the device was lodged into the tight space with a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He would have considered lighting one if he was not stuck in such an inopportune situation. He hit one on speed dial and Seungwoo’s voice filtered through the speakers after the second ring, “What’s up?”

“Fuck my life,” Jinhyuk wheezed. Wooseok’s forearm was too warm under his grip. “I need help.”

Seungwoo chuckled. Jinhyuk would sock him in his pretty face the next chance he got.

_“Fuck your life? That’s what you need help with?”_

“Don’t be fucking daft.” Jinhyuk spat, “You remember what you said about some _biological pull,_ how do I stop that and fast?”

_“What’d you do? Triggered someone’s heat?”_

“You gotta be fucking kidding?”

_“Context Jin, what’d you do?”_

“I don’t know. I’m with Wooseok and his skin is burning.”

_“Oh, you stupid fuck.”_

“Seungwoo, I’m bloody serious. I don’t know what to do.”

_“You did that to him. Call someone, but not some alpha who thinks with their cock. After that, get the fuck away from him real fast.”_

Jinhyuk dropped the call and, for the first time in a really long while, screamed for help.

//

The next time he got to see Wooseok was the day after the odd incident at the kindergarten.

Jinhyuk had skipped on band practice and he had already missed a lot of their sessions due to his preoccupation with Wooseok. Even Hangyul who only complained once in a blue moon told him – in the most roundabout way – that he needed to get his priorities sorted. He wondered how he would tell them that Wooseok was right on top of his priority list because he needed to figure out what it was the omega possessed that metaphorically had him on his knees. Either way, Jinhyuk was too distracted with literally everything else to even focus, even his excessive alcohol consumption did not lend him extraordinary powers like it usually would.

Jinhyuk was personally driven to Wooseok’s family’s residence – a Tudor style house with the most pristinely maintained lawn Jinhyuk had ever seen – by a severe looking man who told him he was three minutes late. Jinhyuk nodded, only to agree with the statement, though he did not disclose why he had been late (he was nursing a particularly awful tension headache brought about by binge drinking half a bottle of his last Elijah Craig the night prior).

Jinhyuk was led inside the house by a pair of uniformed maids. They openly ogled Jinhyuk’s bare forearms, barely hiding disgust as the existence of Jinhyuk’s tattoos offended their presumed high moral standing. The guitarist smirked, he could not care less what these people thought of him anyway. He was used to it. Instead of hinging on the maids’ inhospitable welcome, he marveled at the interior of Wooseok’s home. The floor was wooden – oak - Jinhyuk guessed. It was the same material that held the ceiling. There were portraits of Wooseok’s entire family emblazoning ivory walls.

The entire space smelled of, you guessed it, lavender and bergamot. The source of the said scent was sat calmly in the sitting room.

“I apologize.” Wooseok began as soon as Jinhyuk made himself comfortable. The omega wore a black, knitted sweater that revealed his collarbones and the pale column of his neck. And he stared at his fingers like they were the most interesting things to have graced the universe. “My behavior yesterday was completely unacceptable.”

“It’s okay.” Jinhyuk was genuinely unbothered at that moment.

Though he could not say the same thing just the day previous. Seungwoo even heralded his distress with adequately calming words. It was Jinhyuk’s panic that bounced off the walls of the Annex instead of his rhythms. _Don’t worry. You’re attracted to him. He’s attracted to you. The way I see it, it’s a win for everyone involved. Don’t think too much about it, we got a fucking record to write,_ Seungwoo had said. Of course, Jinhyuk valiantly tried not to hinge on his nerves despite the fact that he could still feel the imprint of Wooseok’s lips on his skin. As soon as he stepped into his own flat, he went straight into his preinstalled bar, grabbed a half empty bottle of bourbon and guzzled it straight into his throat.

He was too inebriated to formulate a contingency plan in case he would need one just for this exact moment. Now, he had no idea what to even say. Wooseok’s eyes remained on the ground.

“It was not. It was shameful. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Wooseok, look, I don’t think it was all you. It would have been impossible for you to do that if it didn’t involve some sort of automatic response. If I had known we could pull this sort of reaction from each other, I would have never approached you again. For that, I should apologize. Please don’t let this get to you.”

Wooseok finally raised his gaze, “Why do you think we could draw this response from each other?”

Jinhyuk grunted, “Aside from the fact that I am incredibly drawn to you, I don’t know. Your scent, it does…things. I don’t usually get affected by sweet smelling creatures but yours is something else entirely. It’s hard to resist.”

“I guess I haven’t been entirely forthcoming about the situation.” Wooseok sighed, “I created Wooshin because of you, because of Eve. I think it’s the reason why you’re drawn to me.”

“But you hate my band.”

“Yes, partly because you kept on ignoring me and partly because I wanted to know if I could push you to sound even better.”

Jinhyuk shifted on his seat. He was confused. “I don’t understand. You’re a critic.”

  
“Yes, I am. I’m an avid fan of your scene. I follow a lot of indie grunge bands and I run a blog where I criticize them when their playing’s shit but with a big room for improvement. I studied music my entire life, but at some point, classical became so fucking boring. So I deviated. I discovered Eve the last time Minsoo played bass. I have to admit, Seungwoo rounds out your sound better than Minsoo ever could.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“You’re daft.” Wooseok sighed, “I’m incredibly attracted to you, Jinhyuk. Isn’t that clear enough? I followed your band for so long because of you and you never noticed me. I watched you play at every known stage and you never noticed me. Not even once. Not until I started nitpicking. Now we’re here. My omega ticks you off, the same way you tick me off. Thus, we can’t get our hands off each other.”

Wooseok made it sound so simple, as if Jinhyuk had not gone half insane trying to wrap his head around his own actions. Now, here they were, and Wooseok was telling him he felt the same. Jinhyuk blinked. He was not entirely sure what to think.

“You’re attracted to me?”

The omega inhaled, “In some way, yes I am. Why? Is the idea revolting?”

Jinhyuk shook his head and he began to laugh. “This is crazy.”

“Will it bother you to be less mocking about this?”

“I’m not mocking you. It’s just that this attraction isn’t purely conscious. You don’t like _me_ Wooseok. You like my _scent_. For a reason I have yet to understand, my body compels you in the exact same way you compel mine. But me, inherently as a person -- it’s impossible.”

Wooseok lifted his gaze. He stared at Jinhyuk with a peculiar fire backlighting his eyes.

_Lavender, bergamot and spring._

“And who are you to say that?”

_Because I barely have my life together. Because I’ve so many addictions I’m not strong enough to part with. Because music is my entire life and I can’t do anything else outside of it. Because I’ve found success yet I’m still a failure. Because you’re flawless and I’m fucked up. Because a mere human cannot simply be with an angel._

“Because I just know.” Jinhyuk murmured, “I just know Wooseok. You don’t wanna get involved, especially not with someone like me.”

Wooseok stood up. He looked petite and delicate and everything that was good in Jinhyuk’s life yet in that moment, he was menacing. Though in a fraction of a second, the expression melted off his face.

_“Trust me, I wish I can let this go but I can’t.”_

What was it that had inexorably and unknowingly drawn him to Wooseok in the first place?

It was Wooseok’s words.

Jinhyuk could still remember the first time Eve gathered in front of their execs as the managers read the first few scathing comments on _Dawn_ when it was first introduced to a world where everybody was not easily pleased. There were good critics and there were bad ones and Jinhyuk has long learned to accept that a lot of people would rather burn their record than listen to it.

Then there was Wooshin who may not have been the biggest fan of their music but was undeniably intrigued for what Eve has yet to offer. Wooshin who nitpicked the way Jinhyuk sounded in one of the tracks until Jinhyuk was forced to reintegrate, something he thought he would never have to do. Wooshin who called them _mediocre with a flair_ instead of the ever encompassing _experimental garbage._ After that, it had become a game for him. For every time they played a show and for every record they would release, Wooshin needed to be there. Jinhyuk was not sure what he initially wanted to achieve – he liked to humor himself with Wooshin’s seething gaze then – but after a few albums and sold out stages where tides have changed and every known critic had turned into sycophantic followers, Jinhyuk desired Wooshin’s honest thoughts. He desired to be challenged, to be pushed to his limits.

He had been drawn to Wooshin, to Wooseok, from the very beginning.

“Those were my words.” Jinhyuk said as clarity finally dawned. He could not help but smile, “You can’t use them against me.” His face was mere inches away from the omega’s pale neck, where he grew lavenders and bergamot – the fucking central gravity of spring itself.

“I can.” Wooseok spat, “It’s the truth. I can’t ever lie to you anyway. And fucking seriously? You won’t say anything, after what you did to me?”

Jinhyuk stood up, he was nearly a head taller than Wooseok and the height difference seemed to do nothing but further aggravate the already seething omega.

“And what did I do?”

Jinhyuk’s palm made a tentative move as it hovered right atop the covered skin of Wooseok’s torso. He wanted to touch, he wanted to ground himself. Wooseok inched closer and removed all sorts of hesitation present upon Jinhyuk’s being as he pulled Jinhyuk’s hand on top of his covered skin.

“Feel that?” Wooseok raised an infallibly shaped eyebrow, “It burns and that’s because your _fucking_ ocean breeze is doing all sorts of _fucking_ things to me. Now, would you kindly address this before I go _fucking_ insane? And don’t you ever go on some martyr tirade that I can’t be with someone like you because I’m pretty sure this isn’t a one way street. I affect you the same way. And trust me darling, this feels like hell.”

Of course, even at a time like this, Wooseok would never fail to be brutally frank. He was correct on all counts. He made Jinhyuk’s skin burn too. He sparked inexplicable urges that cannot be satiated with anything else but Wooseok’s presence.

“I want to.” Jinhyuk began. The tips of his fingers gently dug onto the flesh of Wooseok’s waist, _feeling._ “I want to try and frankly, I’m scared. I don’t have to explain my life to you because I’m guilty of everything that’s been written about me, Wooseok. I can legitimately say that I’m not good for you but I’ll try, I’ll try my damned fucking hardest to change and not just because this feels like hell, but because I’m truly drawn to you, it’s insane.”

“You don’t have to change because of me.” Wooseok grinned, “Change because you want to. Change because it’s what you need to do, hell I’m fucked up too. Just because you think I look perfect doesn’t mean I am.”

Jinhyuk was entranced, he moved his palm from Wooseok’s waist to his unblemished cheek. He felt like his skin would melt right off his bones. “But you’re fucking perfect. You’re the most beautiful human being I’ve ever seen.” 

Wooseok leaned up and pressed his lips onto the side of Jinhyuk’s mouth, “Maybe you should start doing something about it.” Jinhyuk could feel the curl of Wooseok’s teasing smile against his cheek.

“Should I?” Jinhyuk murmured though he never waited for Wooseok to answer. He shifted and pressed his lips against Wooseok’s. Jinhyuk was not completely sober, but he was particularly aware of the littlest details – the groove of Wooseok’s lips, the way it felt in between his teeth and the sounds he made – and Jinhyuk casually took it all in. He would probably forget his own name but not the feel of the omega’s mouth against his.

He would try. It was a valiant thought.

//

Seungyoun often found himself preoccupied – a side effect of his desired poison – though he would admit that it was only his band mate that truly kept him awake most nights.

He stared at the thick pewter smoke that billowed in front of him like a hypnotic mirage that emanated from Seungwoo’s lips. Seungyoun wondered why he often got himself in situations that forced him to be alone with Seungwoo but maybe that was the beauty of their peculiar affair.

Affair. The implications of the word bothered Seungyoun. It was awful enough that he felt like he was Seungwoo’s hobby, his casual entertainment when Jinhyuk was too busy gallivanting with his newest addiction, the ever seraphic Wooseok Kim.

The band was truly a fucking mess.

Seungyoun cannot even remember the last time he and Yohan exchanged words that did not involve music and other things in their line of work. Hangyul, on the other hand, had successfully built such a thick wall of ice around himself that even Seungyoun cannot pass through. Three months after their last tour, the guitarist could have disappeared right into thin fucking air.

Nine years in the music scene and six of those years with a label behind Eve. Six years of nearly nonstop touring, six years of theoretically ceaseless songwriting, six years of nurturing their respective addictions and six fucking years to get tired of each other.

Hiatus.

It was an unfamiliar word and it was Hangyul who had first brought it up. They were in the Annex, getting slowly but surely sick of the same songs that had catapulted them to the top. It was reminiscent of the time Minsoo left. After one song, Hangyul casually decided to stop playing and the loss of his part was irrecoverable. He had put down his Fender and told them he felt sick, that he was fucking exhausted, that he needed a break.

Maybe they all needed a break.

The thing was, Eve cannot be Eve without Hangyul. The fact that Hangyul wrote the bulk of their discography made him an integral part of who they were and his skill was something you would never find even in the most seasoned session musicians. Oddly enough, it never caused a fight, not even a measly argument. Seungyoun then realized that their career was reaching a plateau – a point in a band’s career that forced them to be away from each other because they were starting to feel the burn of the spotlights and the pressure from everyone who gave a fuck about them – and if they wanted to survive, they needed to part before they reached a certain time where a misunderstanding arose and they would soon rather go at each other’s throats because it was the only way to resolve it.

Jinhyuk had looked surprised. He had become unbearably sober. Seungyoun had listened to one of his drunken tirades that inexorably went on and on about quitting alcohol entirely. But Jinhyuk did not realize that his dependency stemmed from his deeply hidden anxieties. The process to quitting was oh-so-fucking bad. Jinhyuk could barely recognize his own sound without whiskey in his bloodstream and he hated himself every single second.

Aside from their music, they were getting tired of each other too. It was a fact that they dare not face. Seungyoun surmised that they were all fucking cowards.

Hiatus. That was the word that would go on to grace headlines but all of Eve knew that it was merely a euphemism. A polite, impersonal word that would calm their fans. Truth is, they were hardly sure of the ever present _future_ that would be constantly demanded from them. _Future record. Future tour. Future collaborations. Future, future, future._ They were sick of each other, sick of their music and the only thing they could promise was that there could be no future. Eve could sizzle out and die. It will not be a bad time anyway. Two of their band members were indicted into the hall of fame, they have become household names in under a decade, ninety million records sold. It was a good time to die and move on to other things.

_Well there’s a light in your eye that keeps shining_

_Like a star that can’t wait for the night_

_I hate to think I been blinded, baby_

_Why can’t I see you tonight?_

Seungwoo’s fine dulcet quietly filled the car. They were inside the bassist’s Mercedes G65, said owner slouched behind the wheel, a lit joint loosely dangled between his fingers. Seungwoo looked beautiful like this, with his mussed up hair and rumpled clothes. He looked naturally relaxed, but maybe it was the effect of his current drug that rendered him near boneless.

Seungyoun envied Seungwoo’s apparent lack of interest. The world could probably melt over in that moment and he would not even care.

The bassist sang along and turned just in time to meet Seungyoun’s eyes boring on him. He mouthed the last part of the lyrics. _“Light of the love that I found, light of the love that I found.”_ Seungyoun could feel his blood pressure spiking.

Seungwoo smiled at him, the same intoxicated smile he gave Seungyoun a few nights ago. “Sir Robert fucking Plant. Brilliant wasn’t it?”

Seungyoun shrugged, “I didn’t know you listen to Zeppelin.”

Seungwoo leaned away and closed his eyes once again. “I practically worship them.” He brought the lit joint to his lips and took a deep inhale. Seungyoun watched him. His every move had such a titillating grace, it was entrancing. Seungwoo tossed half of what remained out the opened window and as he exhaled, thick smoke obscured his face. Seungyoun kept staring, he kept staring even as Seungwoo pressed his paradoxically warm palm against Seungyoun’s left cheek.

“You’re alluring.” Seungwoo’s touch was gentle, as if Seungyoun’s skin was thin glass, as if Seungyoun would break at the slightest pressure. “So alluring.”

Seungwoo fell into this trance and he would allow Seungyoun to become witness to a sudden shift in his personality. His ice cold apathy would melt completely and in its place there was _this._ This being an ambivalent surety in his actions, rare moments that allowed Seungyoun to be privy to whatever sort of thought that he held at bay since it showed on the planes of his face. Seungwoo would lose all hesitance and be so unbearably transparent that Seungyoun often wondered if he did it at will. He could have faked it.

“I want to kiss you.”

The words had a peculiarly specific effect: they made Seungyoun’s blood simmer into a boil. He thought he would spontaneously combust.

Seungwoo’s stare did not waver.

“Why?”

“Because you smell good.” Seungwoo casually retorted as he averted his gaze. He reclined against the leathery material of the driver’s seat and closed his eyes. “Because you’re attractive. Because I want to.”

The merriments of the event they casually abandoned echoed in the balmy night. It was humid, Seungyoun could feel the heat on his face but somehow, Seungwoo’s pine forest tinged the air and his perpetual winter made it cold. It was such a fascinating aspect about him. Seungyoun thought it would never cease to amaze him.

“You want to?”

Seungwoo hummed.

Seungyoun thought about it for a second then he clambered across the gear shift and deposited himself on top of Seungwoo’s parted thighs. His knee caps brushed the backrest of the seat.

The alpha did not move. He simply let out a quiet laugh as Seungyoun threw both arms round Seungwoo’s neck.

“Correct me if I’m wrong but is this one of your attempts at seduction? I have to say Youn it’s working.” 

Seungyoun gazed at him. He could see the flecks of green in Seungwoo’s eyes. “I don’t know.” He answered. Seungwoo’s palms were on Seungyoun’s back, caressing, creating abstract forms of art that only he could see.

Their lips brushed, teasing. Seungyoun’s skin felt hot, _too hot._ Seungwoo’s palm was right on top of his thinly clothed ass, the touch was heavy, it wanted to possess.

“Please?” Seungyoun mutedly begged against the seam of Seungwoo’s mouth. He was out of it with a need that seemed to singe his flesh. “Please.” Seungwoo kissed him, unbearably slow. His mouth was cold against Seungyoun’s feverish lips. Seungyoun wanted more _._ He ground his hips against Seungwoo’s crotch, _more._ Seungwoo pulled him closer, kissed him harder, tips of his fingers dug into the cleft of Seungyoun’s ass, _more._ Seungyoun moaned. His omega was pleased.

Seungyoun wanted. He wanted Seungwoo. He wanted his body. He wanted someone, something that was not and could never be his.

They parted.

“If I begged enough will you fuck me?”

_If I begged enough will you love me?_

“You’re too good for me.” Seungwoo whispered, “I don’t want to hurt you.”

He expected that same answer but why did it still hurt? Seungyoun hid the pain with a broken laugh.

He would never, never be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the song is led zeppelin's 'fool in the rain' 
> 
> twitter @showmyun

**Author's Note:**

> yeah i know, why does she always posts unfinished fics? 
> 
> it's because i got not life. 
> 
> anyway, for reference, pre Seungwoo eve sounded like bring me the horizon's earlier years (pray for plagues) and suicide silence. with seungwoo, they sound like incubus in science/morning view. 
> 
> twitter: showmyun


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